The Dirty Dozen Brass Band offers the opening fanfare for Modest Mouse’s sixth full-length, GOOD NEWS FOR PEOPLE WHO LIKE BAD NEWS, a fitting intro for the outfit’s most majestic record to date. On their prior major-label recordings, the (formerly) indie icons opted for wandering, spacey arrangements to accompany Isaac Brock’s magnificently obtuse poetics. GOOD NEWS revives the immediacy of the band’s earlier releases, but furthers the production values (without too much polish), and out pours some of the most commanding pop-rock imaginable.

The first single off of GOOD NEWS was the wonderfully catchy “Float On,” with its syncopated, disco-like beat and Zen simplicity exemplified in the opening line “I backed my car into a cop car the other day. Well, he just drove off. Sometimes life’s okay.” Brock’s trademark wistful vocals rest on the music as well as they ever have, equally at home on the serenely beautiful “The World at Large” and the choleric, Pixies-esque “Bury Me with It.” The album closes fittingly with a visit from alt-rock royalty, as the Flaming Lips drop by on the sublimely sweet “The Good Times Are Killing Me.”

Tracklisting
1. Horn Intro
2. The World At Large
3. Float On
4. Ocean Breathes Salty
5. Dig Your Grave
6. Bury Me With It
7. Dance Hall
8. Bukowski
9. This Devil’s Workday
10. The View
11. Satin In A Coffin
12. Interlude (Milo)
13. Blame It On The Tetons
14. Black Cadillacs
15. One Change
16. The Good Times Are Killing Me

Professional Reviews
Rolling Stone (pp.146-150) – Included in Rolling Stone’s Top 50 Records Of 2004 – “Brock’s dark psyche has never been more fun to stare into.”

Spin (p.103) – “[H]alf expansive, burnished radio-rock, half swampy Delta hoodoo-hollerin’ that reeks of Brock’s Southern sojourn….In Brock’s cities made of ashes, his demons still glower where the homestead meets the highway.” – Grade: A

Spin (p.67) – Ranked #4 in Spin’s “40 Best Albums of the Year” – “[They] kept their sense of rhythm without feigning the funk…”

Entertainment Weekly (4/9/04, p.84) – “…[H]eralds an expansive new phase for the formerly scrawny Northwest combo.” – Rating: B+

Q (p.p.103) – 4 stars out of 5 – “They’re Seattle’s best kept secret, but on the strength of this album they won’t remain so for much longer.”

Magnet (p.66) – Ranked #2 in Magnet’s “The 20 Best Albums Of 2004″ – “Keeping life’s demons at bay is what occupies Modest Mouse in its finest hour.”

CMJ (p.6) – “[H]ands down their best album yet….Their revered ill-tuned shrug-rock now does the eclectic boogaloo…”

Mojo (Publisher) (p.102) – 4 stars out of 5 – “[M]oments of simple, exultant joy are plentiful…”