3 out of 5

Label: Epic

Producer: Modest Mouse (live recording)

I saw Modest Mouse live a small handful of times during the Moon & Antarctica era, and to be honest – I never found them to be the most impressive live act.  Standard, as far as that whole thing goes, with some light crowd talk, a good mix of new and old, and some embellishments where the songs allow.  But the groove and precision of a studio environment have seemed suited to Brock and crew’s sound, as onstage it always just sounds a little too loose and not quite emotive – just playing the tracks instead of feeling ’em.  It’s very possible that I didn’t see Mouse during their ‘peak’ – which would probably have been during ‘Lonesome Crowded West’ touring – but I recall a chick in the crowd giving me both the impression that she’d been a fan for longer than I had at that point and the secondary impression that what I was seeing live was pretty common.

So ‘Baron’ captures that pretty well.  I’ve never been a big fan of live albums because I don’t quite understand them.  Acts do need to be seen live in order to gather interest, generally, and we’ve all discovered one or two acts because we dug what we heard when they opened for so and so, but some bands rock live and some are just average, and then the live environment itself enhances things to a certain degree such that something totally the norm on album sounds great on stage.  If you bring something unique to the stage I might not hear on your disc, then sure, record it.  And maybe you make Built to Spill’s live album, which is one of their best albums and a wholly original thing in their discography.  But a lot of the times – as with Baron – if you don’t already dig the band, the live recording isn’t going to convince you of anything new.

It’s a good selection of tracks ranging from ‘Lonesome’ to the ‘Building Nothing’ singles and ‘Moon and Antarctica,’ with some moments from ‘Good News’ to keep Sony happy.  But to the band’s credit, this was released as more of a fan disc, since it was limited.  As a fan, though, I still don’t think Modest Mouse is a great live band.  But they at least consistently represent themselves on the disc, and you get a bonus Freebird rant that almost crosses the line into ‘man, people in a band I dig are maybe not that smart,’ but I bet if you were there – I bet if you were Freebird dude – you thought it was hilarious and it was a good iTunes memory for you to wank your Yeah Yeah Yeahs to.

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