February 3rd, 2015 
Tyler Hanan 
Modest Mouse have led off new release day with a few bits of big news themselves, including a bevy of good, a little bad, and just the slightest bit of unease.
The biggest news is the new single. “The Best Room” is the third we’ve heard off the impending Strangers to Ourselves, following We Were Dead-head “Lampshades of Fire” and the stunning, spare “Coyotes.” It edges closer to We Were Dead territory but feels like an evolution of that Modest Mouse sound, as opposed to a return to (or as some might say, a retread of) it. “Lamphsades” didn’t quite achieve that same feat.
The slight disappointment comes with the addendum that the album has been pushed back from March 3 to March 17. After eight years, two weeks is nothing but an additional brief (horn) interlude, but there will surely be some sad reshuffling of a few calendars. The band will also perform on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on that new release day.
Also released today was the tracklist for Strangers to Ourselves. The most notable news out of this – besides the simple fact it contains fifteen tracks, none of which are the one recorded with Big Boi three years ago – is the same fact Pitchfork led off with in their tweet of this same news: ‘[T]he new Modest Mouse album contains a song called “God is an Indian and You’re an Asshole.”‘ Besides resembling the lyrics to “Bukowski” slightly, certain word choices here are, ah, interesting.
Check out “The Best Room” and the tracklist below. Pre-orders are still available, and Interstate-8 have more details on various minutiae. Also, in today’s news: Ben Gibbard and Mark Kozelek had an email chat and touched on Modest Mouse. I don’t want to spoil anything, but Mark Kozelek wasn’t afraid to tell us what he really thinks.
Strangers To Ourselve tracklist
01 Strangers to Ourselves
02 Lampshades on Fire
03 Shit in Your Cut
04 Pistol (A. Cunanan, Miami, FL. 1996)
05 Ansel
06 The Ground Walks, with Time in a Box
07 Coyotes
08 Pups to Dust
09 Sugar Boats
10 Wicked Campaign
11 Be Brave
12 God is an Indian and You’re an Asshole
13 The Tortoise and the Tourist
14 The Best Room
15 Of Course We Know
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These guys are awesome… part of me misses when “Float On” was still a thing, and part of me is STOKED for this new album!
I can’t wait to see these guys perform on March 17 on The Tonight Show. I was thrilled to learn James Mercer is a major collaborator for this album.
Some of the song titles look interesting to say the least but given the tracks that have already been released I’m sure they will be awesome. MM have been killing it with a No 1 single in the Alt charts this week!
Some of the song titles look interesting to say the least but given the tracks that have already been released I’m sure they will be awesome. Excited to hear the whole thing 3/17