With Good News For People Who Love Bad News, Isaac Brock and company have finally returned to the fold four years after their near-masterpiece The Moon and Antarctica. The last four years though have been anything but quiet for these Washington state natives. In 2002, Brock released the bizarrely founded side project Ugly Cassanova, with members of Califone, Holopaw, and Black Heart Procession filling in as the rest of the indie super band. And not too recently, the sudden departure of original drummer/secret weapon Jeremiah Green left the door open for Helio Sequence's Benjamin Weikel to try and fill an elephant size hole in Modest Mouse's shoes.

To say that Good News starts off strangely would be the understatement of the year. I mean, who better to start off the new Modest Mouse album than the Dirty Dozen Brass Band? True, it's only a 10 second horn intro, but that little oddity kick starts an album full of surprises (including the Dirty Dozen Brass Band popping up on the heavily Tom Waits influenced track "This Devil's Workday.") Only one song after that intro, Brock unloads quite possibly the most radio pop friendly song of his 10 year career with the infectiously inspired "Float On." With overly positive lines like "Alright, don't worry even if things end up a bit too heavy. We'll all float on OK" Brock goes against typecast to prove that he really isn't the pessimist that everyone has labeled him to be in the past. Brock also once again proves that he is a master painter with lyrics when singing about mid 20th century poet Charles Bukowski on the aptly titled "Bukowski." Brock in his wickedly sly tone mutters "Yeah, I know he's a pretty good read, but God who'd wanna be such an asshole?" And on "One Chance," Brock shows the soft underbelly of his personal side by lamenting "We have one chance to get everything right. My friends, my habits, my family, they mean so much to me." None of the tenderness displayed throughout this album though is distracting in the slightest.

The only thing distracting however on Good News is the pacing of the album. After two or three really strong songs, the boys feel that inserting some weirdness for the sake of being weird would be just what this album needs. Wrong! "Bury Me With It," "Dance Hall," and "Black Cadillacs" are all ferocious tunes, but completely unneeded, and border on the realm of completely obnoxious. Which is too bad when you consider that Good News definitely has some of the best tunes ever in Modest Mouse's catalog. In a few years I, for one, would hope to see Brock and company laying to rest some of the noisy freakouts. I'm not saying that they should get rid of them altogether, God knows that I have a serious jones for noiserock, but Brock and company have shown that they have a true knack for the direction that they are headed in on this album. Good news really does seem to suit them well for the moment.