Song of the Day — 03·27·26
Lives
Modest Mouse
The Lonesome Crowded West closes with Lives — a quiet, slightly broken coda to an album of noise and frustration. Isaac Brock allows the record to end in something close to resignation, the guitar figures gentle where the earlier tracks were jagged.
Lives is eight minutes long and moves at the pace of someone walking — Brock's voice hovering over fingerpicked guitar that sounds like the album exhaling. It's the most emotionally exposed moment on a record that is already unusually exposed.
The Lonesome Crowded West as a complete experience — from the sprint of the opener to the slow release of Lives — is one of the great arc-plays in 1990s indie rock.
"Lives is the most honest song Brock ever wrote, and that's saying something."
— Pitchfork · 2003