Modest Mouse is one of those bands that exists on the periphery of most alt-rock fans' awareness. They’re no Paramore or Fall Out Boy, bands with discographies so iconic even the most casual of listeners know a few songs by heart. While it seems many people have heard of Modest Mouse, it’s rare you find a true fan or even someone that can name a song other than “Float On.” Let’s be honest, Modest Mouse had one successful album and a whole lot of other stuff that went mostly unnoticed. Not that their other albums were all flops—We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank hit number one on the Billboard 200—but you’re not going to hear the less popular albums playing anywhere but your local record store.
With six other albums and six EPs, Modest Mouse must have some other jewels lying around. I decided to go digging through their catalog to see what there was to find. What I turned up was Night on the Sun, a six-track EP that strays slightly from the band's usual alternative sound for something more surreal.
Modest Mouse’s work is rife with surrealistic influence. Have you ever seen the music video for “Float On”? It’s a five-minute animation of sheep going to slaughter in a pop-up storybook style. The band is weird.
Night on the Sun doubles down on the weirdness, which may have been a factor in it becoming a forgotten gem. It begins with a nine-minute jam about accepting your own mortality. It’s a brave way to open your EP and undoubtedly scared many listeners off. The rest of the tracks are a little more consumable. “You’re the Good Things (It’s Alright to Die)” and “Dark Center of the Universe” are traditional Modest Mouse tracks reminiscent of Good News for People Who Love Bad News. Although these songs do carry on the themes of mortality and accepting death. Pretty heavy for the casual listener. Following “Dark Center of the Universe” is “Your Life,” an acoustic folk-inspired song that is once again about accepting death.
Instrumentally, the EP is all over the place with a mix of traditional Modest Mouse songs and experimental tracks. You have “Night on the Sun,” with its nine-minute runtime, then “You’re the Good Things (It’s Alright to Die),” a song that could easily get airtime on alternative radio. We get a folk tune, “Wild Pack of Family Dogs,” then an explosive rock song with “Dark Center of the Universe,” and wrap it up with “Your Life.” At the end, they tacked on an eighteen-second clip of drummer Jeremiah Green speaking some Japanese. Night on the Sun doesn’t have a concise sound, but it does have a recurring theme: death. It is a piece that explores the limits of the band's sound and the complexities of human consciousness, like something that would have come out of San Francisco in the late ‘60s. Fantastic for those of us that love that particular brand of strangeness, but not something that is easily marketed.
Another issue Night on the Sun had to contend with was its scattered release. The EP first dropped in 1999, available exclusively in Japan. A year later it would be released in the States and the UK as a limited vinyl run; however, this vinyl version of Night on the Sun was not the record they got in Japan. Both versions feature “Night on the Sun” and “You’re the Good Things,” however the two songs were shortened for the vinyl edition. The vinyl does not have any of the other songs on the Japan-only release. Instead, it has two new tracks, “Willful Suspension of Disbelief” and “I Came as a Rat (Long Walk Off a Short Dock).” The band essentially has two albums with the same name, which could lead to confusion and frustration if you walk into a record shop looking for the Japan-only version and walk out with the US print.
Between its odd content and muddled release, it’s not hard to see how this EP was forgotten. Despite its warm reception on release, critics enjoyed the mix of experimental tracks and classic Modest Mouse sounds. Night on the Sun has faded into obscurity, now only receiving about three thousand streams on Spotify a day. That may sound like a lot, but keep in mind their most popular album, the twentieth anniversary rerelease of Good News for People Who Love Bad News, pulls in about three hundred thousand streams a day.
The EP has been all but forgotten. It’s a shame considering it is one of the band’s best releases. I didn’t quite get Night on the Sun the first time I listened to it. I loved “You’re the Good Things (It’s Alright to Die)” and “Dark Center of the Universe,” but the rest of the record didn’t resonate with me. So, I listened to it again and again, and by the tenth time I had heard “Wild Pack of Family Dogs,” it had grown on me. Now the entire EP has found a home on my alt-rock playlist.
We probably won’t ever hear “Your Life” playing in any credit card commercials, but that doesn’t make it any less of a jam than “Float On.” If you’re a fan of Modest Mouse, you’ll like Night on the Sun. It isn’t as consumable as their more popular titles, but if you can embrace the weird, you will find some of the best the band has to offer. Night on the Sun is worth every second you’ll spend listening to it. If you haven’t had the chance to hear it yet, you can find the Japanese version, the good version, wherever you stream your music.
