Reader Request!

You spoke, and I listened. The first ever request for me to review a CD came from a myspace friend of mine named Chelsy. Upon her request I immediately searched the web to find Modest Mouse’s The Lonesome Crowded West. Coming into this experience I was very excited. I tend to find my reviews biased, because frankly I review things that I like. My main goal is all of this is to open people’s minds to something they may not be normally open to. So, when someone surprisingly asks me to review something for them, I feel a little out of my element. But I enjoy being pushed out of my comfort zone, writing wise that is.

The only song I’ve ever heard from Modest Mouse was that song they played non-stop on MTV with the really weird music video a couple of years back, you probably know the tune “Float On”. But I wikipedia-ed (yes I just made that word up) and had high expectations for a band with a guitarist from The Smiths in it.
My first initial reaction to hearing the first song was Wow this sounds nothing like that song I know them by. I really like the lyrical content of the album as a whole, even if I did have to look the lyrics up to understand what he was yelling about. The lyrics happen to be witty and are matched with eye catching titles. I felt lead singer Brock’s vocals/slurred screaming annoyed me and became redundant at times. The album really gave me the feeling of something Primuis-y for some reason. My favorite song on the album was “Jesus Christ Was an Only Child” because I enjoyed the fact that musically there was less going on in this song to trigger my A.D.D. I liked “Long Distance Drunk” for its striped down feeling also.

As a whole I mildly disliked The Lonesome Crowded West. I think it is mainly because I was expecting something completely different than what was delivered to my ears. When you have expectations, I find they easily get let down (Katie’s Life Lesson One). Another reason may simply be that, even though it is extendable, my personal music taste did not match up with this album. It was not the worst album, and maybe after a couple of listens I will change my mind, but I certainly would not run out to F.Y.E with my $20 in hand ready to buy.