“It was 25 effing years ago,” Isaac Brock told RANGE in 2021 while discussing The Golden Casket. He was referring to Modest Mouse’s 1996 debut, This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About, and the lingering suspicion that he’d never written anything as transcendent as “Dramamine” again. Time flies: that interview, now five years ago, means the band’s debut is now 30 years old. Fortunately, An Eraser and a Maze, out in June on Brock’s own label, finds the band sounding surprisingly revitalized.

Whether these 15 tracks constitute Modest Mouse’s eighth, ninth, or tenth album remains a matter of debate—this is a discography that still sparks arguments over whether Sad Sappy Sucker counts. What’s not up for debate is that the first album since drummer Jeremiah Green’s passing lands as the band’s strongest in years, eclipsing both The Golden Casket and the often-overlooked Strangers to Ourselves.

The singles make the case immediately. “Picking Dragons’ Pockets” is a sneering neo-psych stomper, Brock sounding like the grumpy uncle clearing the dance floor just to prove he still has the best moves. Meanwhile, “Third Side of the Moon” mourns Green with the existential loneliness Modest Mouse have always wielded so well: “Am I the shade or a shadow? Well, I can’t really tell.”

For longtime fans, An Eraser and a Maze feels like the fulfilment of a wish buried in Good News for People Who Love Bad News: “And maybe we’ll get lucky, and we’ll both grow old.” Against the odds, Modest Mouse have.