Modest Mouse Share “Third Side Of The Moon” Ahead of First Indie Album Since 1997

If you have not already, Chris DeVille’s report from Modest Mouse’s Ice Cream Floats concert cruise is worth the read. It follows the band through a setting that raises a few useful questions: what it means to be an idiosyncratic veteran act with a devoted audience, how indie rock has drifted into lifestyle territory, and why the cruise could not go to Alaska the way Isaac Brock had first imagined.

Now Modest Mouse are heading into another live stretch. This weekend, they play Salt Lake City’s Kilby Block Party festival. They are not there as the sole focus of the trip, but they will be on site, and coverage is coming. The bigger news is the music itself. Next month, the band will self-release An Eraser And A Maze, their first album on an independent label since The Lonesome Crowded West in 1997.

The group has already posted two early tracks from the record, “Look How Far…” and “Picking Dragons’ Pockets.” Today, they add “Third Side Of The Moon,” a queasy, contemplative song that has been part of their live set for the last few years.

Modest Mouse have long sounded most at home when looking up. “Third Side Of The Moon” keeps that line of thought going, even if the title points to a place no one can quite map. Listen below.

An Eraser And A Maze is out 6/5 on Isaac Brock’s own Glacial Pace label.