Modest Mouse announced today their first new album in five years, and their first album on Glacial Pace Recordings, the longtime imprint of lead singer Isaac Brock, after over two decades on Epic Records. An Eraser and a Maze will be released on June 5 and was produced by Brock with additional production by Jackknife Lee (U2, The Killers), Suzy Shinn (Weezer), and Justin Raisen (Charli xcx, Kim Gordon, Lil Yachty). An Eraser And A Maze” is available for pre-save and pre-order now.
There's a theory in physics — the idea that past, present, and future all exist simultaneously, and that the passage of time itself is an illusion. It's also the best way to understand An Eraser and a Maze, because you can hear every era of Modest Mouse coexisting at once on it. It might mark the end of a timeline. Or the start of one. Or maybe both at once. Modest Mouse began working on this collection of songs immediately following 2021’s The Golden Casket. With six songs that could have formed an EP, he considered releasing them as his side project, Ugly Casanova, but ultimately decided to feature the expanded collection on the band’s Glacial Pace Recordings.
As for the thematic glue that holds it all together, while Brock is no fan of overexplaining or overintellectualizing a record, what he will allow: With 2021’s The Golden Casket, he was trying to manufacture post-pandemic silver linings. “For this one, I turned off my filter and just let it all happen. Even though every goddamn musician says that when they put out a record. I mean, go ahead and listen to the three-minute mark of any interview between a musician and Terry Gross …”
“Thoughts, emotions, feelings, all that stuff … you're like the soup, and it’s not always easy to pick out the ingredients. I don't dwell on things much. I don't grieve much. I'm not sure I'm a person. I feel like I should have more feelings than I do. But then, you know, I'll sing stuff. And I'm like, Oh, there it is. Oh — it's in there.”
Modest Mouse also shared today the opening track. “Picking Dragon’s Pockets,” a bombastic kickoff to the album with an anthemic chorus that’ll have you singing loudly about navigating a manipulative, self-destructive world. Previously release song “Look How Far,” finds Isaac Brock's signature blunt and sardonic tone remains intact, especially in the stark lyric that questions human progress: "Look how far we’ve come / oh my god we’re so fucking dumb.”
Both songs can be streamed below.
