It’s hard to know what to expect from a Modest Mouse concert. In the past, their live performances have ranged from so stoic that the band never acknowledges the audience, to so frantic that frontman Isaac Brock drunkenly cuts himself onstage. Fans might be in for further surprises when they hit the road for an oh so short week in June. Questions abound: Will they hint at any details about their rumored new album, supposedly produced by Big Boi? Will their demeanor be ecstatic, subdued, or both? But most importantly, what the hell will they play?

The group has been famous for mixing up their set in the past, treating the crowd to everything from Ugly Casanova covers to radio hits to lengthy explanations as to why they can’t play “Free Bird.” And while they debuted a brand new song at the Frost Revival in Palo Alto this past weekend, we’re also hoping they dig further into their back catalogue.  Their inherent unpredictability makes it anyone’s game. Your move, boys.

-Dan Caffrey
Senior Staff Writer

10. ”Bankrupt on Selling”

Lonesome Crowded West, on the whole, is fairly bleak, and this track is one of its most depressing inclusions. With lines like “I came clean outta love with my love/I still love her/loved her more when she used to be sober/and I was kinder” and “All of the angels they’d sell off your soul/for a set of new rings and anything gold”, it’s a simple in-your-face number that could really work with just Brock on a bare stage with his guitar. Even though it’s included on their live  album, Baron von Bullshit Rides Again, the band hasn’t played it for years. They’d just need to follow it up with something that bounces. -Nick Freed

9. “Spilled Milk Factory”

While Ugly Casanova was classified as a side project for Isaac Brock and members of Califone, Holopaw, and Red Red Meat, Brock more or less ran the show. Several of their songs even began as demos for Modest Mouse, who was known to occasionally play them live in the early 2000s. “Spilled Milk Factory” heaves with chain gang dementia, its warped harmonica, falsetto chants, and hammer clinks driving a fiddle that sounds like it’s being played by a daddy long legs spider. Its sluggishness is poised to fall apart at any moment, and would be even more compelling when sandwiched between Brock’s tighter material on later albums. -Dan Caffrey

8. “Stars Are Projectors”

The Moon and Antarctica is by far the most and best produced album in the Modest Mouse canon. “Stars Are Projectors” is where the space reverb expanse becomes infinite. The reversed guitar at the start and the extended jam at the end are perfect for an encore. Start that guitar in the darkness of a venue like The Gorge or Red Rocks and it will echo forever. Plus, it’s stuffed with some brilliant lyricism (“Was there a need for creation?/That was hidden in a math equation/that’s this:/Where do circles begin?”) that could explode many a mind. -Nick Freed

7.  ”Polar Opposites”

“Polar Opposites” possesses Modest Mouse’s trademark imagery: crippling introspection, bizarre animalia, and casual substance abuse. But unlike much of the other material on The Lonesome Crowded West, it somehow comes off as sweet. Maybe it’s the palm muted chords. Maybe it’s the stripped down instrumentation. Either way, it would make the perfect encore opener to a more epic tune such as “King Rat” or “Whale Song”. -Dan Caffrey

6. “Jesus Christ Was an Only Child”

Isaac Brock is at his best is when he’s screaming and ranting about heaven and hell-fire, and this folk jam is right in his wheel house. Despite being a standout track on Lonesome Crowded West, the band hasn’t played it for nearly 10 years. Putting this barnstormer in the encore with a stomping, spitting, and erratic Brock would knock the roof of the place.

5. ”I’ve Got It All (Most)”

The material on 2009′s B-sides collection No One’s First, and You’re Next saw Modest Mouse deftly teetering back and forth between aggression and melancholia. “I’ve Got It All (Most)” falls into the latter category. Brock’s bruised lisp and broken guitar is an unexpected and understated way to end an album and would be an equally affecting finish to an encore. -Dan Caffrey

4. “Night on the Sun”

This tossed off B-side, later included on Everywhere and His Nasty Parlour Tricks, would be a perfect companion to “Stars Are Projectors” as it deals with similar themes both in lyrics and in the music. It also contains some of the best lines Brock has written: “There’s one thing to know about this town/It’s five hundred miles underground, and that’s ok/There’s one thing to know about this Earth/We’re put here just to make more dirt, and that’s ok.” Imagine a few hundred people screaming that along with fists raised high. -Nick Freed

3. ”The Fruit That Ate Itself”

Modest Mouse has no shortage of songs that prove the band can stomp and howl with the best of them, but few match the energy and focus of this early gem. As a briefer predecessor to “Trucker’s Atlas”, it stumbles along with Jeremiah Green’s thick backbeat and Brock’s throatiest bark. He almost always sounds energetic; here he’s positively unhinged. -Dan Caffrey

2. “Dog Paddle”

This song is a bit of a left field pick, but it’s kind of an underrated track from Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About. As far as energy and driving rhythm, this song is right up there with “Shit Luck” in regards to Brock spitting venom on stage. It also has that kind of Tom Waits sound that Brock loves these days. What’s more, it would make the die hards go crazy to hear Brock cough and wheeze through this deep cut. -Nick Freed

1. ”Convenient Parking”

The live performance of The Lonesome Crowded West‘s third track does away with any sense of calmness or playfulness, jumping right to the manic yelp usually reserved for the chorus. As an audience member, you wonder where else Brock will go until the chorus itself actually does come in and he pushes his raw vocal chords even further. It’s a shaggy dog of a song made even shaggier in person, and would be a welcome addition to any upcoming show. -Dan Caffrey

ElvisBride formed when the band members were working together on a play, so it only makes sense that they bring a sense of theatricality to their live show. In the past, they’ve dabbled in such whimsical stage conventions as accompanying short films, planned offbeat banter, and performance art. These hijinks have become as familiar to fans as their scrappy instrumentation and darkly humorous lyrics, and while the bells and whistles certainly are amusing, the Chicago collective is most fascinating when dabbling in sincerity, as evidenced by Tuesday night’s show at the Double Door. The gentler tunes were the ones that stood out.

Don’t get me wrong. The bizarre sci-fi wordplay of the “Dr. Computer” saga and the dictatorial preacher of “Shake It” are always welcome.  But the highlight of the night was “Claire”, a newer, less aggressive tune. Troy Martin’s tender ukulele and the double helix of Taylor Bibat’s and Casey Cunningham’s vocal harmonies evoked something youthful and nostalgic, a feeling that usually takes a back seat to the curious comedy at ElvisBride shows. The lyrics still had the band’s signature macabre twist, describing a miniature woman that the narrator delicately keeps inside his pocket, but at the end of the day, it was a love song, or at least felt like one. The same went for the equally pristine “Lost Our Breath”. “This is a song you heard at your prom,” the band quipped before playing it. The audience laughed, but it could have easily been true.

Antics and empathy melded perfectly during the bookends of the evening. Martin took the stage by himself and softly strummed while repeating the words “we can’t begin.” One by one, his bandmates entered and trickled in with their respective parts, with banjo showman Matt Test still missing when the song ended with the completed lyric: “we can’t begin until everyone’s here.” Test then dashed forward in a huff before launching into the proper set and ranting about the spiritual killing of mankind. At the night’s epilogue, the tune received a quieter, reverse treatment, with everyone leaving until Martin was once again alone. The lights thinned to a dim spotlight on the ukulele player as he strummed his final note and thanked everyone for coming, proving that even in theatre, the most compelling moments are often the simplest.

Photography by Joe Mazza/Brave Lux, Inc. 

Setlist:
We Can’t Begin
Shake It
Fever
Crumple
Claire
As You Said
Don’t Remember Long
Ducks Of Lub
Strategy
Lost Our Breath
Devil’s Bay
Dr. Computer
Dr. Computer Jr.
Encore:
Yuri And Oliver
Stroke
We Can’t Begin (outro)

Carnavas ebbed and flowed between restraint and chaos a la Michael Myers, stalking the listener with Nikki Monninger’s brooding bass in songs like “Three Seed” before murdering their eardrums with the shoegaze distortion of “Common Reactor.”  Sophomore effort Swoon, or Halloween II, was more muscular (if not quite as flawless) than its predecessor. With the cataclysmic fuzz amplified and the production bolstered by dramatic strings, the tunes were louder, faster, and more violent. At times it was messy, but nonetheless enjoyable.

In an attempt to draw in new viewers while still retaining the Halloween title, the script for Halloween III: Season of the Witch eschewed any mention of Michael Myers and opted instead for a crackpot story that involved druids, robots, and exploding masks. The sci-fi/horror fusion didn’t work, as things never veered far enough in either direction to make a coherent product. Neck of the Woods takes a similar middle of the road approach, and as a result, the Pickups sound oddly de-fanged.

Most songs begin quietly, with Aubert plucking lonely, cavernous notes over one of Joe Lester’s celestial keyboard riffs or a drum loop from Chris Guanlao. Over five to seven minutes (even their best work has always felt bloated), things gradually shift into a white noise that’s never quite as loud or cathartic as the band’s earlier songs. It’s as if the group wanted to branch into more introspective territory with each track, then quickly launched into a pale imitation of themselves when all else failed. “Make Believe”, “Busy Bees”, “Simmer”, “Out of Breath”, and the watered down Joy Division cut “The Pit” all take this approach: A structure of constant, predictable crescendo.

The most successful tracks see the band trying something either completely new or simply sticking to their 90s alt-rock guns. First single “Bloody Mary (Nerve Endings)” uses a synthesized dreamscape as an anchor rather than an afterthought, cycloning during the intro before dropping out to showcase Aubert’s androgynous wail. The keyboards morph throughout the rest of the song to display a keen sense of pop-oriented peaks and valleys instead of just building and building to nothing.

“Gun-Shy Sunshine” shows similar variance as it interweaves crunchy power cords with hissing loops and vintage organ rather than jarringly shifting back and forth. “Mean Spirits” is the only track to charge out of the barn already dripping with high-stakes distortion. Silversun Pickups have always been unfairly accused of aping The Smashing Pumpkins’ 90′s output, only embracing nostalgia instead of tip-toeing away from it might result in more toothier tracks like this. Like the best material on Carnavas, it conjures a white-knuckle chase scene that would find itself at home in any horror movie worth its salt.

Essential Tracks: “Bloody Mary (Nerve Endings)”, “Gun-Shy Sunshine”, and “Mean Spirits”

Feature artwork by Dmitri Jackson.

Bizarre theatrics such as this have garnered Not Blood Paint a small cult following, but the spectacle would mean nothing if it wasn’t backed by a sharpened pop sensibility. This principle of hell meets hook is the thesis of the band’s debut album La Normalidad, a record that owes just as much to the FM classicism of The Beach Boys and the Stones as it does to the psychedelic vaudeville of Of Montreal. Sunny four-part harmonies interlock with constant signature shifts, proggy guitar solos, and tribal wails. And that’s just in the second track. While this could easily make for a sonic mess, every song ropes in the listener with an homage to a familiar genre or oft-covered musician before subverting expectations with an abrupt change in gears. Ominous guitar twang propels the Western showdown of “Shooter” until the bullets morph into tiny disco balls for the dance-worthy finale.  “Army” recalls Graceland-era Paul Simon with its bubbling bass line and choral exclamations, then descends into an off-color soundscape of panting and military orders, causing one to wonder if the song’s patriotic protagonist (or any of us, really) is truly cut out for the armed forces.

But Not Blood Paint is most fascinating when exploring the realm of strange lust, a topic that creeps its way into several of La Normalidad‘s songs. “Watch Your Mouth” starts off simply enough, with lead vocalists George Frye and Joe Stratton trading barbs about a girl. As things progress, we discover the former’s made a cuckold of the latter, having flirted with Stratton’s lady at the laundromat and, in a bizarre turn, gotten high with her as she poured wine into his ear through a tube. “Now I know you’re lying, because she’s allergic to wine and she don’t use tubes!” protests Stratton. The song works both as a piece of macabre comedy and pop bliss thanks to the dueling vocalists, fractured keyboards, and a chorus that taunts lyrics from “Beast of Burden” while still celebrating its ubiquity. Whereas most bands falter when it comes to this sort of copious genre-bending and experimentation, Not Blood Paint thrives. The art never overwhelms the pop and the pop never overwhelms the art.   

Essential Tracks: “Watch Your Mouth”, “Shooter”

Make no mistake; there’s nothing wrong with repetition. LCD Soundsystem built an entire career out of lengthy cuts saturated with thumping disco bass and sugary distortion. But James Murphy possesses a keen sense of nuance and pacing, meticulously constructing his wall of sound brick by sonic brick. Although his songs are often anchored by a simple beat, he weaves in wildly varying tweaks and instrumentation for moments of both unleashed momentum and well-measured restraint. Brown on the other hand–an artist whose shorter melodies feel longer than anything off of Sound of Silver–often opts to start things with a tinny drumbeat that immediately gives way to a full volume stew of radio-friendly electronica. Opener “Girl Like Me”, “Sunday Drive”, “Vaccine”, and closer “Gone Gone Gone” all take this approach. The poppy static lures one in right away, but the pulse grows tiresome due to its refusal to change. It’s as if she can’t wait to get to the good stuff.

Her apathetic vocal delivery only adds to the monotony. Lines such as “And now that you realize you see the pain in my blue eyes/There’s nothing more I can do than sing you lies” coast along with detached vibrato when they could easily be moments of snarling defiance or engaged grief. The verbal slickness makes for choruses that sound oddly robotic.

Anxiety works best when Brown steps out of her comfort zone and displays genuine vulnerability. The moody plod of “Cellophane” seems more concerned with catharsis than groove, and it’s the one moment where the singer connects with her lyrics, surprising given that nearly all of them deal with romantic turmoil. “No sleep tonight. We’re on the night train to anywhere but here,” she rasps and quivers, finally allowing the listener into her head by letting the coolness melt away from her voice. The song’s middle silences all the bells and whistles in favor of a cavernous tom and barely audible bass line. It’s a rare instance of subtlety that shows Brown is far more captivating when being sincere instead of flashy. If she ventures farther in this direction, she might have an album of ear candy that’s both instantly sweet and ultimately satisfying.

Essential Track: “Cellophane”

In later years, for every “Good Eye”, there was a “Queen Of The Supermarket”, for every “Mary’s Place”, a “Worlds Apart”, with its awkwardly shoe-horned Middle Eastern chanting and sitar. On Wrecking Ball, Springsteen incorporates similar outside sounds, but with a restraint that (with the exception of one misstep) highlights the songs instead of overwhelming them. Think of a toned down Seeger Sessions with the best production elements of Human Touch. Bells and whistles aside, it’s still a Bruce Springsteen record, and that’s why it works; an album chock full of heartland rock that details economic crises and spirituality with equal gusto.

Opener and lead-off single “We Take Care Of Our Own” questions America’s collective hospitality behind an engine bowel chug that reflects The Boss’ new-found camaraderie with fellow Jerseyites The Gaslight Anthem. “Where’s the promise from sea to shining sea?” he asks in a lyric that turns a national phrase on its head in a similar fashion to “Born In The U.S.A.”  The Wall Street indictment “Easy Money” prances along with Irish flavored fiddle, yet still rollicks with gruff yelps and extra stomp provided by, yes, those unnecessarily feared drum loops. “Shackled And Drawn” could have easily been a solo outing reminiscent of Woody Guthrie (and it still would have been great), but is elevated to barn burning elation thanks to a powerhouse backing choir, Charlie Giordano’s undulating accordion, and street preaching samples.

While several of Wrecking Ball‘s detractors believe the record’s themes of financial claustrophobia would have been better represented by a bleaker, stripped down aesthetic (the album was originally conceived as having a similar sound to Nebraska), they fail to realize the songs’ inklings of hope. The working class waltz “Jack Of All Trades” sees a couple making do in days characterized by “blood and treasure”, thanks to their own strength and resourcefulness. In another example of Springsteen tempering the album’s outside elements, guest guitar virtuoso Tom Morello–who could have melted “Jack Of All Trades” ‘ working class waltz into a soup of effects pedal flamboyance–remains silent during the piano-driven melancholia of the verses before creeping in with a yearning, slow burn solo at the climax. He outfits “This Depression” in spacy murk two tracks later, leaving plenty of room for Springsteen’s hollow strumming and pleas for a lover’s companionship during financial turmoil.

The title track and “Land Of Hope And Dreams”, the latter an E Street live staple, serve as the album’s full band showcases. The former’s gritty imagery of poverty amongst the Jersey swamps (“where mosquitoes grow as big as airplanes”) transforms into a rally cry for perseverance after a blast of mariachi horns kicks in, while the latter bursts with a final saxophone solo from Clarence Clemons that reminds listeners how much they’ll miss getting floored by his windy growl. The live version of “Hopes And Dreams” from The Essential Bruce Springsteen still packs a bigger punch, but the scaled back instrumentation and added gospel vocals endow it with a more emotional resonance that’s nonetheless interesting.

The only time Springsteen’s expanded sound falters completely is during “Rocky Ground”, anchored by a rap verse written by himself and recited by Michelle Moore. While it’s nice to see The Boss veering into such distant musical territory, hip-hop simply doesn’t suit his style. When rapped, the song’s depiction of hardships and prayer comes off as clunky and vague, reminiscent of some of the more awkward lyrics from Working On A Dream, an album which admittedly hasn’t aged well at all.

But as a whole, Wrecking Ball displays Springsteen’s refusal to coast. While many of his peers are content to rehash pleasant sounding standards and play nothing but greatest hits as they settle into their ’60s and beyond, The Boss continues to explore rock ‘n’ roll that sounds as good in a church as it does in a stadium. With its equal dose of powerful hooks and characters pushing through hard times, Wrecking Ball suggests that there might not even be a difference.

Essential Tracks: “We Take Care Of Our Own”, “Wrecking Ball”, “Land Of Hopes And Dreams”

Even the hugest hooks are poised to fall apart at any moment. Eric Bachmann and Eric Johnson’s hazily dueling licks from leadoff track “Step into the Light” never quite sync up with the sludgy rhythm section of Matt Gentling and Mark Price. Laced with background vocals that sound hollered from the bottom of a well, the song is an exercise in addicting slop, a sonic nugget that’s part pop, part stoner punk. The pace increases throughout the rest of the record, but the aesthetic remains the same and the influences grow odder. The furious momentum of both “Harnessed in Slums” and the chorus to “Let the Loser Melt” share a cadence reminiscent of Run-D.M.C.’s “It’s Tricky” (seriously, listen to it), while closer “Underachievers March and Fight Song” mashes clumsy toybox trumpet with off-kilter grunge for a football cheer that sounds like it’s being played by a gang of detention hall slackers.

At the album’s core, the brief instrumental “1985″ segues a garage circus organ into the unabashed rocker, “Fabricoh”.  Here, Bachmann’s gruff bark is a welcome memory when stacked against his faux Spanish accent in his more recent work with Crooked Fingers. “Rocking it out!” he belts, referring to a crowd the protagonist leaves behind at the end of the song. It’s never clear whether the frontman is celebrating an audience’s exuberance or decrying their mob mentality. Maybe it’s both. And that’s the beauty of Bachmann’s lyrics. They alternate between personal appeals and cryptic narratives, the literal and the obtuse. “Nostalgia” is the meatheaded threat of a greaser while “Greatest of All Time” chronicles the fan-induced drowning of the world’s worst musician, which prompts the world’s best (and also dead) musician to escape Heaven and return to Earth. The song’s mention of the Devil and the overcrowded underground evoke an indie scene being synonymous with Hell, making for a double meaning that’s both cloudy and fascinating.

Of course, none of this is news to any longtime Archers of Loaf fan. Aside from the remastered sound, reissues are reissues because of their goodies, and Vee Vee has plenty, even if a handful of them seem a bit superfluous. While it’s great to see the invigorating “Harnessed in Slums” single B-sides “Telepathic Traffic” and “Don’t Believe the Good News” included, they’re preceded by a radio mix of the titular track that sounds almost identical to the original. Matador’s Pavement reissues contained all of the band’s B-sides in their entirety, but left the A-sides solely on disc one so there could be more room for rarities. Elsewhere on the second disc, the instrumental surfer cum spy theme “Mark Price P.I.” gets old fast, as does unreleased jam “Equinox”. Then again, these are bonuses that will no doubt be enjoyed by completists (even if only listened to once or twice), and one has a hard time arguing against the rustically haunting spoken word of “Big Joe and Phantom 309″ and the soul baring home demos of almost half of Vee Vee.

Even the album artwork gets a makeover that suggests the band is perfectly aware of its legacy. The original release’s straightforward photo of a woman leaning against a car has been replaced by a creepy cartoon of the same image, but with a background of dead trees and a cluster of green tendrils coiling around the vehicle’s grill. Like Archers of Loaf’s music, it’s a mixture of the classic and the macabre, a reminder of just how wonderfully strange this band is before you even unwrap the album.

Essential Tracks: “Step into the Light”, “Fabricoh”

It’s a trend that continues with their latest output, The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy, and thanks to a ubiquitous wave of ’90s nostalgia amongst the music industry, the band may finally get the critical and commercial respect it deserves. While their previous records have gotten progressively softer (perhaps explaining the increased lack of interest), Stars finds the group reinvigorated with a collection of 10 tunes full of measured distortion, crisp hooks, and Caws’ earnest tenor.

Opener “Clear Eye Clouded Mind” is driven by three sharpened power chords (not too sharp, mind you) laced together by Ira Elliot’s precision snare. The song forsakes buildup in favor of immediate fuzz, transporting one back to a time where having Ric Ocasek produce your album was synonymous with badassery. “Waiting For Something” and “The Moon Is Calling” pack further pop rock punch with a tinge of new wave keyboards, while “When I Was Young” serves as the album’s bittersweet centerpiece, a slow burner that begins with twilight plucking reminiscent of The Weight Is A Gift and Lucky before ascending to the addicting alt-rock heights of Nada Surf’s earlier work, anchored by sweeping power chords and dramatic strings.

If Stars has one setback, it’s the lyrics, something that has been a consistent weak spot for the band. Caws is capable of turning an evocative phrase, but the occasional reliance on half-baked pop culture references such as Gilligan’s Island and vague, awkward statements like “It’s never too late for teenage dreams” (and even the album’s title) bring out a clunkiness that threatens to undercut the otherwise tightened songwriting. But words aside, The Stars Are Indifferent To Astronomy could be the comeback for a band who deserves to be recognized as something much more than a mid-’90s punchline.

Essential Tracks: “Clear Eye Clouded Mind”, “When I Was Young”, and “Waiting For Something”

Clear Heart Full Eyes sees Finn placing his usual rogues gallery of charismatic losers, drug dealers, and revelers in a more rustic setting creaking with slide guitar, caterwauling banjo, and ghostly acoustics. Having since left the city, the players are older (Finn regular, the skinhead Gideon, makes an especially depressing appearance), the party’s over, and most of them are now alone, left to deal with their past mistakes when confronted by ominous, sometimes biblical figures. The aging, entropic direction of his once celebratory yet conflicted religious characters is something Finn began to explore on more downbeat tracks like “First Night” off of 2006′s Boys and Girls in America, and here it becomes the crux of the album.

Christ himself plays the central role in “New Friend Jesus”, one of the record’s stronger tracks, where the messiah meets Finn in a parking lot, joins his band, helps him pay his bills, but provides no help when playing sports (“it’s hard to catch with holes in your hands”). Finn skirts his signature talk-singing for a more straightforward delivery, and while the narratives themselves are as resonant as ever and full of the aforementioned lyrical zingers (“When No One’s Watching” and “Terrified Eyes” are also standouts), it feels like he’s holding back vocally. The overall tone ends up sounding unsure and disconnected as opposed to ominous or foreboding. Granted, Finn’s current songs are slower and more meditative than his past work, but that didn’t stop the similarly paced and themed “Both Crosses” (off of 2008′s Stay Positive) from packing a heavy dose of creepy catharsis. As much as Finn may have tried to avoid replicating The Hold Steady, many of these tracks would have made perfectly good Hold Steady songs, and you can’t help but wonder what they’d sound like if he was singing them as his usual self.

Having a rotating lineup of musicians from Texas stalwarts such as Heartless Bastards, White Denim, and Phosphorescent doesn’t help either. The Hold Steady has always adapted to Finn’s constantly morphing details, infusing down-in-the-dumps cuts like “Lord, I’m Discouraged” with varied instrumentation that elevated the soundscape as much as it anchored it. Here, the twang plods along with stellar musicianship, but no personality, causing lyrically compelling cuts “Apollo Bay” and “Jackson” to feel like the singer and band are in different rooms. On Clear Heart Full Eyes, Finn brings the stories (he always brings the stories), but as a whole, the album sounds atypically half-hearted.

Essential Tracks: “New Friend Jesus”, “When No One’s Watching”

Feature artwork by Cap Blackard.

Take “The Symphony”, for example. The song is laced with dreamy keyboards, but strip them away and you’re left with a gradually crescendoing chord progression, unwaveringly melancholy vocals, and vague lyrics that would have easily fit in anywhere on The Final Straw and A Hundred Million Suns. It actually would have been nice to see the band further embrace their new-found love for the heavier side of electronica, an aesthetic that rears its toothsome head on the first half of the album, then peters out.

Opener “I’ll Never Let Go” buries everything in throbbing toms and spacy effects before giving away to an explosion of distorted crunch and thrilling backing vocals from famed gospel singer Merry Clayton. “Called Out In The Dark” has a nice tinge of disco and the ethereal momentum of “The Weight Of Love” possesses a heaviness akin to Muse. After that, it’s business as usual. While nearly all the latter half tracks contain an echo of dancefloor spirit, it’s typically placed in the backseat in favor of maudlin strings (“Lifening”), dreary piano (“New York”), and an emphasis on frontman Gary Lightbody’s heart-on-sleeve lyrics.

The words in the record’s first half are no different but are at least buried in the band’s more risky musical detours, whereas the latter half’s more straightforward tunes allow sentiments such as “Have we lost the magic that we once had?” and “We are the light” to shine in all their unspecified glory. Keyboard effects aside, it’s the same-old same-old, and whether you love Snow Patrol or hate ‘em, Fallen Empires will do little to change your mind.

Essential Tracks: “Called Out In The Dark”