On The Lonesome Crowded West, the second full-length from Washington's indie up-and-comers Modest Mouse, an outpouring of religious imagery blesses an innovative set of jagged guitar-rock with a candy coat of clever familiarity. The common references stretch the length of the record, but are twisted and spun in a unique manipulation of universal metaphors that spice up each listen and provide depth to an otherwise contented formula. The band successfully expand upon the offbeat pop of acts like the Talking Heads, with both distorted imagery and unique arrangements, switching time signatures with stop-on-a-dime precision and a temperance between energized, often ballistic fits and more subdued, melodic hooks. With a fresh take on Francis Black's 'Debaser'-style bursts, Brock unleashes in sporadic detonations of off-kilter, occasionally out of key shouts and whines, but, as if triggered by a switch, he often recoils into vulnerable, smooth passages that drive his points home with equal force. The album's lead track, 'Teeth Like God's Shoeshine', is a seven-minute epic employing biblical references and Brock at his most agitated, but the dust settles in line with a harmonic guitar passage and an indictment of mindless consumerism. "Go to the grocery store/Buy some new friends/And find out the beginning, the end and the best of it  … Here's the man with teeth like God's shoeshine/He sparkles, shimmers, shines," sings Brock in unison with himself, like a chorus of the downtrodden. 

Brock has the pacing of an expert comedian, allowing his band to gather a ruckus behind him with their time-change expertise, akin to any adequate set-up complete with tangents and the anchor of a refrain. When the smoke clears for the punch-line Brock is steady and consistent in his delivery, dropping off the wall similes and metaphors ("My brains the burger and my heart's the charcoal") and outlandish character portraits ('Cowboy Dan') with creativity to spare. "Opinions were like kittens/I was giving them away," promises Brock on 'Out of Gas', and you're inclined to believe this man has more than a gift with words. Musically, novel flourishes add a timeless quality to the record. It's touches like the DJ scratches on 'Heart Cooks Brain' or the fiddle line on 'Jesus Christ Was An Only Child' that surround Brock and propel him forward. With the gift of making over five minutes feel like under three, Modest Mouse find their groove in extended pieces like the insanely catchy album highlight 'Trailer Trash', a startling portrait of the lower tiers of rural America, or the jammy road-trip opus 'Trucker's Atlas'.      

But it's in theological reflections that the album excels, and where the lyrics reach their most poignant. Brock's uncertainty is projected in lines like "I was in heaven/I was in hell/Believe in neither/But fear them as well," and it's through these contradictions that The Lonesome Crowded West solidifies its appeal and wisdom. With black humor and a sterling wit, Modest Mouse stand up in the face of the looming presence of Jesus Christ, calling him out by name in repeated lyrical instances and re-imagining his relevance to their place in the world. And it's in self-reflection and the ability to accept confliction that Brock's cynicism is given weight. By allegedly saving us from the depths of sin, the Son of God offered us a new burden, that of living life in the face of a contradictory reality. Just three years shy of the turn of the century, Brock not only witnesses the uneasiness, skepticism and underachievement that has hit like the plague, he feels it, breaths it and urgently, as if something were on fire (and sometimes as if he's the one doing the igniting), he yells it at the top of his lungs.