"Nine times out of ten our hearts just get dissolved," observes Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock in "Bukowski," from their new album, Good News for People who Love Bad News. "Well I want a better place, or just a better place to fall," he lazily continues as his banjo intertwines with band mate Eric Judy's low bass guitar and subtle accordion. Its lyrical themes of frustration, fatigue and mortality are constant throughout Good News, the band's fourth proper album and second on Epic Records. Nevertheless, the record is a surprising and even exciting move for the band, reflecting on past efforts while sneaking a glance toward the future.Although it's been four years since Modest Mouse's last album, their major-label debut The Moon and Antarctica, the band still managed to treat fans during the interim. An EP, Everywhere and His Nasty Parlor Tricks, and the band's previously-unreleased first album, Sad Sappy Sucker, were both released in 2001. Brock's Ugly Casanova side project-with Brian Deck and Tim Rutili (both of Califone and Red Red Meat), Pall Jenkins from The Black Heart Procession, and John Orth from Holopaw-dropped its first and only album, Sharpen Your Teeth, in 2002. Brock also moonlighted as an A&R rep for Sub Pop Records, signing both The Shins and Iron & Wine to the popular indie label. And at the beginning of this month, a remastered version of The Moon and Antarctica was released, complete with four bonus tracks recorded for the BBC.

It's reasonable, then, that 2004 finds Modest Mouse a very different band. Drummer Jeremiah Green, who quit the band last year, has been replaced by Ben Wiekal, and the band recorded Good News with Camper Van Beethoven producer Dennis Herring instead of Moon's Brian Deck. Sonically, the differences are less clear. While past records built upon their immediate predecessors' groundwork, Modest Mouse's new album makes little reference to the epic, conceptual Moon and Antarctica. Instead, Brock spends about half of Good News balancing the eccentric back-roads experimentalism of Ugly Casanova with the erratic charm of their 1997 album, The Lonesome Crowded West, and devotes the rest of the album to exploring territories previously unknown to the band. It sounds great on paper, but Good News lacks the cohesiveness and consistency of past efforts. It's a confusing follow-up, leading me to think that Isaac Brock is just as perplexed about his band's direction as we are.

Interrupting the album's flow before it even begins, "Horn Intro" is one of several short and useless segues found throughout the album. Taken from "This Devil's Workday," another song on the album, two sharp horn blasts annoyingly introduce the relaxed "The World At Large," the disc's true opener. The only explanation for this seemingly senseless tracking is an attempt to distinguish Good News from Moon and 1996's This is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About, both of which began with similarly noodled mid-tempo numbers.

Along with filler tracks like "Dance Hall" and interludes like "Dig Your Grave," Good News frustrates with "Blame it on the Tetons," a pseudo-ballad and the first Modest Mouse song to ever use a piano. It has some nice fiddle (courtesy of Tom Peloso) but Brock's babyish attempt at an endearing vocal performance ultimately makes it too weakly cute to work.
Thankfully, Good News hits more than it misses. "Float On," the album's first single, is a ridiculously catchy pop gem and an irresistible guilty pleasure. Already making ripples in mainstream radio, the song begins with a bouncy electric guitar and faux banjo hook. Isaac Brock's signature guitar flourishes help embellish the verses as he crazily screams, "Well we'll float on, good news is on the way!" And after winding down into several seconds of ambience, a drunken choir of Brock's layered vocals returns with one last chorus.

The legendary Pixies have always been an obvious influence on Modest Mouse, but the entropic highlight; "Bury Me with It," places their famous soft verse-to-heavy chorus song structure on a disco-punk dance floor, led by Brock's frantic, inebriated vocals. Continuing with "Dance Hall," however, it seems that Brock might have had one drink too many, as he embarrassingly rants and repeats, "I'm going to dance hall, dance hall every day!" over a thick bass-line from Eric Judy.

Featuring New Orleans' Dirty Dozen Brass Band, "The Devil's Workday" is a fractured Dixieland march, complete with low-pitched horns and deep bluesy vocals more befitting of Tom Waits' classic album Rain Dogs. Continuing in a similar vein and borrowing from their friends in Califone, the stomping "Satin in a Coffin" squeezes more jarring blues, suspense and hoarse vocal layers into its two and a half minutes than their peers could manage over the course of an entire album.

Unfortunately, a lot of fans will find Good News for People who Love Bad News to be Modest Mouse's worst album. Regardless, it's a testament to the band's fantastic career, and not simply through its self-referential songwriting. Modest Mouse is no longer at the top of its game, yet Good News is already among the year's best. I can only hope that the band's future lies in the album's more experimental side, and not in Brock's recent tendency to rehash his past triumphs.