Save for the exception of maybe Fountains of Wayne or Eminem (that's a combination you probably never expected to see placed side by side) there aren't too many modern musicians who can effectively tell a story quite like Modest Mouse. Especially in modern indie music, where each song is treated as an exercise in confounding the listener with ambiguous rants and attempts at sounding important (without actually saying anything of consequence), Modest Mouse sticks out like a welcome sunflower in a patch of pretentious gardenias. A song like "This Devil's Workday"--which spins the tale of a man who fancies himself an altruist while literally destroying the world around him--maybe isn't as straightforward as an old-school Johnny Cash song, but it was created in a similar mold. Or there's "Talkin' Sh*t About a Pretty Sunset," a song about a person teetering on the edge of suicide, which actually uses the melody to simulate the song's setting sun. The crowning jewel, though, is certainly "Cowboy Dan," a self-professed big shot who worries that life is progressing too fast. The protagonist is completely alone in the desert, but still feels claustrophobic because he's failed to accomplish much of meaning, and the evolving world is swallowing him up whole. Of course, there are several allusions to Brock's own contentious relationship to God (or his faith in the lack thereof), which makes it even more compelling.
