In the interim between 2007's
We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank and 2015's
Strangers to Ourselves,
Isaac Brock receded from the spotlight. He sat out the better part of a decade -- making several lineup changes (shedding longterm collaborator
Eric Judy, and adding
Russell Higbee,
Jim Fairchild, and auxiliary player
Lisa Molinaro), attempting to record an album with
Big Boi, toying with bringing
Krist Novoselic aboard -- before finally deciding to get back to where he once belonged.
Brock's return to roots is naturally a roundabout of detours, a record that moves between stylized eccentricity and streamlined strangeness, stopping occasionally to soak in a scenic, dreamy view.
Strangers to Ourselves starts at this hazy point, swooning with a narcotic sway that recalls peak
Mercury Rev. Still, it's not long before
Modest Mouse begins bouncing at a syncopation that recalls "Float On," just one of many deliberate references to the ghosts of alt-rock past haunting
Strangers to Ourselves. "Pistol" skeeves out like a disco-fied outtake from
Ween's
Pure Guava, the carnivalesque "Sugar Boats" lurches forward on a circus piano reminiscent of
Blur, and "The Best Room" circles around a guitar riff that echoes Space Ghost Coast to Coast -- each one a signal that
Brock is comfortable with the dream of the '90s. The trick is, he now has the skill of a consummate craftsman, so the raggedness here comes across as deliberate, probably because the moments that are less consciously quirky -- i.e., the bulk of the album -- are so skillfully constructed. So,
Strangers to Ourselves is an album where the trees matter more than the forest: song for song, it demonstrates the exacting nature of
Brock. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
