Modest Mouse STRANGERS TO OURSELVES

In the interim between 2007's We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank and 2015's Strangers to Ourselves, Isaac Brock receded from the spotlight. He sat out the better part of a decade -- making several lineup changes (shedding longterm collaborator Eric Judy, and adding Russell Higbee, Jim Fairchild, and auxiliary player Lisa Molinaro), attempting to record an album with Big Boi, toying with bringing Krist Novoselic aboard -- before finally deciding to get back to where he once belonged. Brock's return to roots is naturally a roundabout of detours, a record that moves between stylized eccentricity and streamlined strangeness, stopping occasionally to soak in a scenic, dreamy view. Strangers to Ourselves starts at this hazy point, swooning with a narcotic sway that recalls peak Mercury Rev. Still, it's not long before Modest Mouse begins bouncing at a syncopation that recalls "Float On," just one of many deliberate references to the ghosts of alt-rock past haunting Strangers to Ourselves