Modest Mouse Announces First New Album in Six Years

It’s the band’s first album since 2015′s “Strangers to Ourselves,” which itself arrived eight years after “We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank.”

Modest Mouse 2021 IMAGE: James Joiner.
By Matthew Singer

A lot has happened in the six years since Modest Mouse last released an album.

Frontman Isaac Brock opened and closed a bar. He caused a fender-bender on the Morrison Bridge and subsequently got sued by a city employee. He sold his longtime house in the Buckman neighborhood and famously referred to Portland, his adopted hometown, as “a collection of human turds” on Polish TV.

Given all that, perhaps it’s understandable that Brock and his cohorts haven’t found much time for actual music making. But it appears the hiatus is over: The indie-rock heavyweights are releasing their seventh studio album, The Golden Casket, on June 25.

It’s the band’s first album since 2015′s Strangers to Ourselves, which itself arrived eight years after We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank.

According to a press release, The Golden Casket was recorded in both Portland and L.A. and “explores themes ranging from the degradation of our psychic landscapes and invisible technology, to fatherhood.” (Oh yeah, Brock also apparently had a daughter sometime in 2018, a tidbit he revealed in, uh, High Times magazine.) Strangely, none of the one-off singles Modest Mouse released in 2019 appears on the track list, but there is a song called “Never Fuck a Spider on the Fly,” so hey.

In addition to the album announcement, the band also revealed the record’s first single, “We Are Between.” Check it out below:

With live music slowly returning, the band already has one gig booked for 2021: The Life Is Beautiful festival in Las Vegas in September. Anyone want to bet we see a Modest Mouse gig in Portland before the year is up?

Willamette Week’s reporting has concrete impacts that change laws, force action from civic leaders, and drive compromised politicians from public office. Support WW's journalism today.