Some news is good news

Rock has always had its share of alluring dangerous types -- the misunderstood juvenile delinquent, the fast-riding and fast-living motorcycle outlaw, and the volatile and misogynist (but secretly just insecure) partying bad boy . But now there seems to be a new one surfacing: the unassuming introverted rocker whose childish obsession with dying is (hopefully) ironic. This new type is the one channeled by Modest Mouse on their new album, "Good News for People Who Love Bad News," whose joyful good humor is marred at times by its own self-awareness.

After the critical acclaim of 2000's "The Moon & Antarctica," Modest Mouse, which consists of singer/guitarist Isaac Brock, bassist Eric Judy, and drummer Jeremiah Green, have been taking a break from recording new music. In these last four years, they have released a "lost" album, "Sad Sappy Sucker", put out an EP, "Everywhere and His Nasty Parlor Tricks", and recorded bonus tracks for "The Moon & Antarctica."

The band has thrown its hat back into the rock ring with the release of "Good News for People Who Love Bad News," a pseudo-concept album about death and the ocean.

It's true: aside from death, the idea that extends throughout "Good News" is the ocean (especially the idea of drowning in it), which is a fitting metaphor for the album. The seas start off calm with the listener sailing over bouncy pop songs like "The World at Large" and the aptly named "Ocean Breathes Salty" and basking in the warmth of "Float On." Then suddenly, the ship hits waves and crashes into rocks, evoking the demonic middle section that includes the songs like "Devil's Work Day" and the cleverly-titled duo of "Dig Your Grave" and "Bury Me with It." Shaken, the crew drags themselves onto shore and collapse to the soothing strains of "Blame It on the Tetons" and "The Good Times Are Killing Me."

Sounds a little too dramatic? Well, it is. And that's what hurts the album. If Modest Mouse could commit to the satanic growling of the middle section, or the airy whisperings of the beginning and end, "Good News" would be a lot more consistent.

In fact, the first and last sections of the album are the best parts, if only because they don't send the listener into catatonic shock. "The World at Large" features bells and whistles that sound as if they were fed through a staticky old radio. Similarly, "Interlude (Milo)" has strings that are so reverberant they sound like an idling car. The lo-fi sound of these two songs is sweet and nostalgic, but in the context of the other stylized tracks on the album, their rawness sounds like just another effect.

"Float On," the album's first single, allows Modest Mouse to sound like a real band, not one at a costume party. While Brock plays around with rock-star posturing on his vocal emphasis ("I ran my mouth off a BIT too much"), Green keeps a steady backing crash of drums and cymbals. In the middle, the beats deteriorate to the point that they sound as if they were sent through an arrhythmic drum machine. Green's beats, along with Brock's clear, close vocals at the end, provide a bit of unexpected freshness in the track.

Alternatively, the album's weird middle section has a dark jazz feel to it which is interesting for a while, but goes on for too long. The best song from this section is "Bukowski," which sounds more like a seedy club than "Dance Hall" ever does. The track features some very creepy banjo playing combined with shrieking vocals to provide a background to Brock's maniacal demands: "Evil home stereo, what good songs do you know?" By the time "Devil's Work Day" croaks, "all the people that you know floating in the river are logs," it's about time for this nightmare to end.

And it does -- the end of the album is a welcome return to the happier times of its beginning. Judy finally gets his chance to shine on tracks like "One Chance" and "Blame It on the Tetons," which is one of the better songs on the album. Brock's vocals are so closely mic'ed that you can hear his every breath, lending an earnestness to his worn out English-major style laments of "language is the liquid/that we're all dissolved in/great for solving problems/after it creates a problem" and "blame it on the weekends/God, I need a cola now."

Modest Mouse is perhaps most well-known for the band's single "Gravity Rides Everything" off of "The Moon & Antarctica," which appeared in a Nissan commercial. If you're expecting this album to sound like that song, with its groovy ambient effects and acoustic strumming, there's some bad news. But if you're able to imagine a world outside a Nissan minivan ("Devil's Work Day" would probably have it drive off a cliff into a river), this album is indeed "Good News."