Strangers to Ourselves

Modest Mouse work by their own inscrutable logic, so instead of returning with an album of material made for outdoor sing-alongs, they’ve thrown back to the squirrelly experimental roots that produced their 1997 cult classic The Lonesome Crowded West.

Strangers To Ourselves is anything but unrecognizable. Long break aside, Strangers wins on near-uniformly excellent songwriting rather than reinvention.