Modest Mouse and mattress

The band takes their name from a Virginia Woolf quote. Truth be told this is quite a fitting lineage as, like Woolf herself, fewer artists give quite as convincing a portrayal of someone on the verge of a mental or nervous breakdown as Modest Mouse.

Isaac Brock’s is the man responsible for that. His voice could convincingly stand up with the likes of Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Morrissey and David Bowie as one of the acquired tastes that you’ll eventually wonder how you ever did without it.

However, it’s when his guttural howl delivers his lyrics that things get truly worrying. The evocative images of everything from the endless dust bowl deserts of the American West, to the sheer expanse of space and the cold, unfeeling ocean posit how we as individual people can possibly mean anything compared to the vast canvas of existence itself. Don’t worry, there’s also some damn catchy choruses in their as well!

Catchy enough to have arguably lead the charge of indie rock into the mainstream after The Strokes and The White Stripes kicked the doors down. They have sold 1.5 million copies of April 2004’s “Good News for People Who Love Bad News”, the album which gave the world their deathless Billboard Hot 100 hit “Float On”. The follow up album 2007’s “We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank”, which featured the aforementioned Johnny Marr as a member of the band for the album’s creation and subsequent tour, was certified Gold as well.

On the surface, it would seem that they are an odd band to have Gold and Platinum albums to their name, but look closer and they always temper their experimental and haunting tendencies with solid gold hooks. If R.E.M are no more, they can be satisfied in the knowledge that there are still alternative rock bands bringing literate, profound and edgy rock and roll to arenas and concert halls the world over.