This Is A Long Drive For Someone With Nothing To Think About
Modest Mouse
Up, 1996
Reviewed by
Mark Groeschner
You're riding shotgun in your girlfriend’s 1986 powder blue Honda
Prelude, it is 8:00 AM and you start to feel nauseous as you enter Youngstown, Ohio. She
throws in Modest Mouse’s first full length album; so you do as Long Drive’s
opener suggests, and swallow some Dramamine.
The smooth sound of Eric Judy’s walking bass mixed with Isaac Brock’s melodic
whammy-bar guitar tones set the perfect backdrop for some much needed rest.
“Traveling, Swallowing, Dramamine. Feeling spaced, breathing out listerine,”
flows from Brock’s mouth as smoothly as the swirls bursting out of his guitar.
"Dramamine’"s soothing tempo segues into Jeremiah Green’s drums which
emulates a skipping record that is perfectly caught in a pleasant groove. And right when
you are about to plant some drool against the passenger side window, Brock announces
“I got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6-6-6!!!!”
The “Olli Olli oxen free,” intro into the screaming refrain of
“Breakthrough,” forces you to sit up and pay attention. You scrap the idea of
sleep until four minutes later when the third track “Custom Concern” starts
painting the slow desolate mural that is consistent throughout Modest Mouse songs: big
empty city = big empty soul. Lyrics about the incessant building of parking lots,
“the beach that used to be by the beach,” and the empty desert that is childhood
(“Tundra”) are perpetual themes on Long Drive.
Long Drive has a wearing pattern of flip-flopping between lethargy and
high-energy. Its stern but melancholy grooves mixed with Brock’s endearing lispy
whine will leave you out cold in the passenger seat, but the second you're at ease, the
band summons the likes of the Pixies (ala Surfer Rosa) and just spazzes out and
starts screaming at you. This album will forever have you squirming in shotgun, trying to
find a way to contort your body to the perfect sleeping position (which everyone knows is
near impossible.
Despite the raw production, punkish drone and distorted guitars littered on Long Drive,
this album is extremely bleak. With lyrics like “Truly lonely, this place is flatter
than it seems,” (“Ohio”) or “Every planned occupation, surefire
disappointment up ahead (“Tundra”) it is no wonder the songs don’t really
go anywhere. The band has an extraordinary gift of molding amazing vocal hooks around
extremely strong rhythms, but once they are in the groove they seem to lose focus.
The cover of Long Drive, a highway road with a descending focal point, suggests
that Modest Mouse know that there is no end in sight, or that it can’t be found. They
are just recording what they feel, and they make no claims to have any answers. If you
listen to This is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About enough
times, the entropy of the Modest Mouse America begins to make sense. Though you probably
will never fall asleep to it, it will become a great traveling companion.
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