release date: Nov. 18, 1997
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,36]
producer: Calvin Johnson with Isaac Brock and Scott Swayze
label: Up Records - nationality: USA
Track highlights: 1. "Teeth Like God's Shoeshine" - 2. "Heart Cooks Brain" - 3. "Convenient Parking" - 8. "Trailer Trash" - 13. "Polar Opposites" - 14. "Bankrupt on Selling"
2nd studio album by Modest Mouse is like the debut a rather lengthy album with a playing time above 73 mins. Also like the debut this is indie pop and alt. rock but it's also played in a more aggressive style of post-hardcore [punk rock] and not really in the lo-fi style of the debut, and then it shows much stronger emphasis on 'soft vs. hard' / 'slow vs. energetic' opposites, as a familiar trait of Pixies and The Breeders.
The Lonesome Crowded West has been lauded as the band's true breakthrough, and then others criticize it for its long playing time. It's clearly bettering the moody debut, although, I don't find it an earth-scattering unforgettable collection of songs. That said, Modest Mouse do experiment with content and matter, and sometimes the direction they explore seems like the deliberate wrong turn - just to have themselves discover what's at the end of that road - if anything.
It has taken me an unusual long time and persistent returns to this particular album to grasp its qualities. This is the closest Modest Mouse has been in making an album that has a tone that takes off in the spirit of Pixies' early albums. There's a strong blend of noise-pop / post-hardcore pieces and fragments of melody-lines and harmonies thrown in all over the album making it a strange, bumpy but appealing listen. It's not my favourite Modest Mouse album but I do find it the band's best among its first three full-length albums.
[ allmusic.com 4,5 / 5, Rolling Stone 3,5 / 5 stars ]
