New Modest Mouse

I may be the only reader of this site for whom this is exciting, but I'm going to write about it anyway.

Modest Mouse has a new album on the way called We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. In a completely random yet awesome development, the legendary Johnny Marr of the Smiths is now a member of the band, having been pulled in during the course of making the album. Original (and very impressive) drummer Jeremiah Green returns for this record, too. The release date has been delayed until some unspecified time early next year. Isaac Brock described it as "a nautical balalaika carnival romp", but I have this suspicion that that might just be his way of making fun of the indie music press.

Despite the album delay, the band has played some new material at a few shows recently, and it can be heard in bootleg recordings online. They sound great to me, despite the iffy sound quality, and I'm really excited about the new album. Some mp3s you can listen to, if you like:

[redacted]

And there's even a YouTube of "Fire It Up" where, lo and behold, Johnny Marr can be seen on stage (far left) with Modest Mouse:
[redacted]

Unrelated interesting development: The New York Times publishes an article with multiple embedded YouTube clips? Crazy -- I never thought the editors would come around to something like that so soon. YouTube was started in February 2005, and hardly anybody had heard of it at this time last year.