Modest Mouse - Strangers To Ourselves

Perhaps the success of "Float On" discombobulated Isaac Brock even more than we suspected. Surely, there were signs of aimlessness on We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, the 2007 sequel to the surprise 2004 smash Good News for People Who Love Bad News, a record where hired gun Johnny Marr was brought aboard to give the band a jolt. This booster shot wore off quickly and Brock receded from the spotlight, sitting out the better part of a decade before re-emerging with Strangers to Ourselves in the spring of 2015. In the interim, he shed longterm collaborator Eric Judy -- he left sometime around 2012, replaced by Russell Higbee -- added guitarist Jim Fairchild and auxiliary player Lisa Molinaro, attempted to record an album with Big Boi, toyed with bringing Krist Novoselic aboard, then finally decided to get back to where he once belonged. Brock's return to roots is naturally a roundabout of detours, a record that bounces between stylized eccentricity and streamlined strangeness, stop