Good News For People Who Love Bad News - Modest Mouse

Advantages: Honest Lyrics, massive variation of instruments.
Disadvantages: Variation will put many off, its a double edged sword. Wavers 3/4 of the way through.

...yes, I consider it a good purchase. I gather that this is Modest Mouse's first release on such a large label, (Epic, part of Sony Music) as previous releases were done via Matador Records. This is a fairly lengthy album that both gains from being so eclectic while simultaneously suffering from the same problem. "Good News For People Who Love Bad News" was produced by Dennis Herring, who was not previously familiar to me, but will be best known ...
...track on the album, "The Good Times Are Killing Me" That song title reveals much about the lyrical content of the album. It is clear that frontman Isaac Brock is prone to pessimism, but is trying, through the songs, to look on the bright side for a change, because maybe that things really aren't so bad. The album begins with a horn intro, done not by Modest Mouse, but by The Dirty Dozen Brass Band. Why exactly it appears at all is a mystery, and ... Read review

Advantages: -
Disadvantages: -

...song on here. A good simple guitar - shuffle percussion and and almost spoken lyrics, finishing off with piano. Black Cadillacs starts off in a similar vein, but ends up as a rehash of Float On, a sure sign the band were running out of ideas by the time this was recorded. One Chance is a hands up attempt at stadium rock, but with a bizarre structure that does it no favours, deliberate feedback and the whole band join in shouting the lyrics. I must ...
...The finale, The Good Times Are Killing Me, drifts along pleasantly enough, but another big chorus and more shouting just render it pointless to me. One minute guitars are crashing in and then it goes all quiet again. They don't put these type of songs on no 16 on the running list for nothing!!!! I did laugh when the music pages on C4 teletext had this as the best album of 2004. If that is the case, 2004 must have been a really awful year for new ... Read review

Advantages: Well written, beautiful and quite mad.
Disadvantages: A bit too long, Isaac's voice is an acquired taste.

...by, the huge hype surrounding Good News was enough to make me check out a song prior to release, and I'm very glad I did. The record quite wonderfully mixes beautiful indie pop with twisted, scathing and slightly funky nonsensical songs, and sounds one of a kind from it. On the beautiful side we have 'The World At Large' and 'Float On', the two beautiful album openers (although whoever had the idea to put these next to each other on the tracklist ...
...more rocky but equally touching 'Ocean Breathes Salty' and acoustic numbers such as 'Blame It On The Tetons'. On the opposite side, we had the Captain Beefheart impression of 'The Devil's Workday', complete with Isaac Brock's vocals more twisted than ever and out of tune brass band, the lyrically and musically scathing 'Bukowski' and 'Satin In A Coffin' (Are you dead or are you sleepin'? Are you dead or are you sleepin'? Boy I sure hope you are dead) ... Read review

Advantages: the originality
Disadvantages: it ends

...no one can resist this. Good New for People Who Love Bad News is an album ranging in tempo and emotion. It has songs like 'The View','Dance Hall' and 'Black Cadillacs' which are good examples of their upbeat songs, but on the other hand thery have songs like 'Float On' and 'Blame it on the Tetons' for their more soft songs. The song 'Bukowski' is probably my favorite on the album because it is one of those songs that has the repete factor, no matter ...
...it. Although in my view this album is amazing, i can see its down points from a listener, such us modest mouse are so organic and original that it's a sound that people aren't used to and could be put off by that. Definatly try out the album, it's a great one for any mood, try listening some of their songs on myspace or last.fm. I give this album a 8/10 and would describe it as epic. ... Read review