An Eraser and A Maze is Modest Mouse’s least compelling album yet

It pains me to say this, but An Eraser and A Maze is Modest Mouse’s least interesting release to date. And I say that with some weight, because Modest Mouse has been a pillar of my musical foundation for the past twenty years (Spotify recently informed me that I’ve listened to them for 18,367 minutes). At this point, though, that pillar feels worn down, like something a city inspector would flag as structurally unsound. Between Isaac Brock repeating half-formed ideas to the point of exhaustion, the band’s odd electronic touches, and their music’s drift into mellow “dad rock” territory, the album struggles to find anything solid to stand on. The spark that once made Modest Mouse feel unpredictable and essential has dimmed. The “WELL!” Brock once belted on “Cowboy Dan” feels like it’s finally run dry.

And don’t get me wrong, I’m not one of those people yelling, “Modest Mouse stopped being good after Good News.” Nah, fuck that. Some of my favorite Modest Mouse songs are latter-day tracks. “Back to the Middle” off 2021’s The Golden Casket absolutely rips, and carries the band’s classic guitar work that I love. Ironically, Brock may have accidentally summarized latter-day Modest Mouse on that same album with the lyric: “Not everything is going to be the best, but there’s still something left.” An Eraser and A Maze feels exactly like that sentiment.

If you’ve spent any time on r/ModestMouse, you’d think this album was a triumphant return to form. Posts like “We’re so back!” and “This sounds like old MM!” have flooded the subreddit since the release of lead single “Look How Far,” followed by “Third Side of the Moon.” To be fair, the latter is genuinely solid and maybe a little misleading in the context of the full album. Any Modest Mouse song with a reference to planets or space in the title usually ends up being a good one. That’s just science at this point. 

Notably, this is also the band’s first fully independent release since signing to Epic Records back in 1999. On paper, that should feel exciting: a band like Modest Mouse returning to the indie world after decades in the major-label machine sounds like the perfect setup for something raw, weird, and creatively rejuvenated. Instead, An Eraser and A Maze often feels strangely restrained, like a band with complete freedom that still can’t quite figure out what it wants to say. It’s also the first album since the passing of founding drummer Jeremiah Green in 2022. Green was fundamental to the sound of Modest Mouse, bringing unconventional percussion and an almost improvised looseness that gave the band its strange heartbeat. He also co-wrote songs across the band’s thirty-year career, including classics like “3rd Planet.” His absence is impossible not to feel.

Sonically, An Eraser and A Maze picks up where The Golden Casket left off, but dialed down several notches. Devoted Redditors have compared it to somewhere between We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank and The Moon & Antarctica, which, honestly, feels borderline offensive considering The Moon & Antarctica might be Modest Mouse’s masterpiece. What those comparisons are really reaching for is that this album is less guitar-forward, slower paced, slightly experimental, and heavier on acoustic textures and electronic beats. What’s missing, though, are the explosive guitar riffs, heavy distortion, and Brock’s unhinged vocal outbursts. He barely belts on this thing, aside from brief flashes on “Look How Far,” which is probably why it landed as a single in the first place. But a few familiar yelps can’t carry an entire album. 

Still, even through the disappointment, there are flashes of the band Modest Mouse once was—small moments where the old magic peeks through the cracks and reminds you why this band mattered so much in the first place. “Third Side of the Moon” is one of them, not just sonically but lyrically; it grapples with the realization that you’re gradually forgetting the details of a loved one who passed. It’s thoughtful and emotionally sharp in the way Modest Mouse used to consistently be. “Absolutely Necessary Never” is another standout, blending the band’s classic elements with newer electronic accents that almost sound like some forgotten jammy Eighties B-side. It is, really, a rare instance where the electronic additions actually work for Brock and co.

But the album also wanders into some genuinely cringe-worthy territory—and rather frequently, at that. “I Can’t Talk Right Now,” “Song About Nothing,” and “Stoner Party” are the clearest offenders. One is a dubby grocery-store song about texting instead of talking. Another literally repeats its own title and premise until it starts to feel like a Nickelodeon bit aimed at preschoolers. And “Stoner Party” barely qualifies as a song at all. It sounds more like an accidental field recording from someone’s backyard kickback, complete with a lazily shouted “You fuck with us, we’ll fuck with you” chant that somehow manages to feel both forced and exhausted. Brock’s lyrics once felt almost prophetic—need I remind you that in 1997 he wrote, “The malls are the soon-to-be ghost towns”?—but there’s very little of that insight here. Instead, we’re spoon-fed half-baked concepts and mundane middle-aged observations stretched far beyond their depth. Somewhere inside An Eraser and A Maze, there’s probably a very good EP trying to get out. Unfortunately, we’ll never hear it. [Glacial Pace Recordings]

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