The Golden Casket
| Modest Mouse
The Golden Casket
The Golden Casket is the seventh studio album by the American alternative rock band Modest Mouse, released on June 25, 2021 on Epic Records. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Pitchfork
The band’s first new album in six years is a procession of pinging, clanging, reverberating tactile pleasures, an inventive backdrop for Isaac Brock’s familiar blend of forced optimism and unforced paranoia.
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Rolling Stone
Modest Mouse Sound Lonesome, Crowded on ‘The Golden Casket’.
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NME
The Pacific Northwesters have turned in a psychedelic pop masterwork that picks up the positivity they first explored with 2004 mega-smash 'Float On'.
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The Indiecator
Modest Mouse’s seventh studio album The Golden Casket mashes the band’s radio-friendly and downright weird sides together, to say the least.
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PopMatters
Modest Mouse’s The Golden Casket is a lively and soulful return; one marked by a distinct sense of clarity and appreciation of life.
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Paste Magazine
Most of the songs on The Golden Casket don’t sound like they’re of a piece, and while the album has its moments, an overall lack of cohesion means they quickly fade. Instead of wry fatalism and gnashing hooks, Modest Mouse too often sound here like they’re trying to quietly give up without disturbing anyone else, instead of taking us all down with them.
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The Fire Note
The album flows well and with repeat listens you are reminded of the showman Brock has always been behind the mic. There are plenty pieces that jump out at you here and if it takes another six years to get an album from Modest Mouse, The Golden Casket will hold up very well to the test of time and keep you satisfied.
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Stereogum
It’s hard to imagine the band’s legacy changing too much from here on out; at this point, comfortably entrenched in the touring circuit with several classic albums to his name, Brock doesn’t really need to keep pushing himself to keep Modest Mouse in business. But with an album this rewarding at this late date, he’s bought my attention until the next Modest Mouse album drops 5-10 years from now. Who knows, by then maybe he’ll be a grandpa.
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No Ripcord
And though we may have to wait a good long time for their next outing, they once again prove that their staying power is undeniable.
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In Review Online
The Golden Casket is long too, concluding at the 50-minute mark and inevitably overstaying its welcome. It at least indicates that there must have been some passion driving this project, some care taken with its production, but, increasingly, it feels as if Modest Mouse is investing more time into work that resonates less.
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Erie Reader
If we never get another Modest Mouse album, it's comforting to know they still go through life like the rest of us — freaked out and occasionally bursting with joy
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Sputnik Music
The Golden Casket is an unexpected triumph. It rejuvenates Modest Mouse’s formula, revealing shiny new highways to success without eliminating the same old reliable roads. It is simultaneously more optimistic, upbeat, experimental, and consistent than anything this band has done in recent memory. While it brings with it a few new shortcomings, particularly in the production department, it still makes for the band’s most exciting album in well over a decade.
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Beats Per Minute
Balancing the joy to be found within and the grim implications of the phrase itself, The Golden Casket is meant for all of us. Whatever guise we pile on, we all end up in the same place. For a genre replete with posturing, it’s beyond refreshing to receive an album that so readily wears its heart on its sleeve, especially from a band so esteemed: with so much to potentially lose. Modest Mouse have made gains simply by being themselves. This is comfort food for the well-worn soul.
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Hotpress
Modest Mouse’s first album in six years sees the tunesmith in a candid (‘Lace Your Shoes’) and comical mood (‘Fuck Your Acid Trip’) and features some of Isaac’s catchiest material to date (‘Walking And Running’).
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Music Connection
This one’s like a warm bubble bath, churning with complex instrumentation and otherworldly effects. For any postmodern dreamer, it’s an introspective journey worth taking.
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The Student Playlist
‘The Golden Casket’ represents a partial rediscovery of Modest Mouse’s (and Isaac Brock’s) identity after the debacle of ‘Strangers To Ourselves’.
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The Needle Drop
The Golden Casket isn't as uninspired as its predecessor; it's more like ill-inspired.
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WTOP
Modest Mouse return full of wisdom and silliness.
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Redbrick Music
The latest album from Modest Mouse sees them approach experimentation, ageing, and life with optimism and strength.
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Slant Magazine
Modest Mouse’s The Golden Casket Is a Polished, Buoyant Pop-Rock Trip.
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Under the Radar Magazine
With the band’s first album in six years, Modest Mouse prove they have the staying power to remain atop the indie rock heap with their knack for harnessing a whimsical energy combined with tight little nuggets of sound and various fragments from diverse styles and genres to create something entirely different that is both exciting and fresh.
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Live4Ever
For his part, Brock has said that Marr is welcome back to the Modest Mouse fold at any time. You guess it’s an offer that may never be taken up, but on The Golden Casket he pulls off the trick of not being held prisoner by the contrary information being pumped at us every second of every day.
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Gigwise
An underwhelming collection of songs.
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DIY Magazine
Not quite Modest Mouse at their best, but they’re not a million miles away from it, either.
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Spectrum Culture
The Golden Casket is the sound of a band reinvigorated, enthusiastically exploring new styles while calling back to the elements that made Modest Mouse’s early work so groundbreaking.
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Treblezine
This may not be Modest Mouse at the apex of their abilities, but it’s a return that actually surprises and pushes, grabbing the audience’s ears in ways that feel as meaningful as they did on The Lonesome Crowded West while carving on its own space for listeners new and old alike.
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Riff Magazine
There’s nothing wrong with that and the new album brings all of his band’s immense talent merrily forward, even as we’ve all been humbled and sobered by our recent reality. “Just being here now is enough for me,” is Brock’s sentiment.
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