Modest Mouse

Each of Modest Mouse’s half-dozen albums has elicited a strong response from both stubborn and adoring fans. Whether it was fans in the mid-‘90s clamoring for the band’s brooding and volatile indie rock to get more attention or fans in the mid-‘00s lamenting the subsequent sell-out of the most important band of their adolescence, Modest Mouse and frontman Issac Brock have worked tirelessly to evolve and articulate their cerebral sound. In the mid-‘90s Brock toyed with folksy, lo-fi rhythms that straddled bedeviled kitsch and menacing melancholy but that raw, unpredictable aesthetic has largely been scrapped in recent years for a more polished and reverberating production quality that sacrifices expression for balance. The kiddies and crooked-hats seem to have taken a liking to the band’s new material on major label Epic Records, while their 20-and-30-something subterranean basement dwellers are reluctant to let go of a stubborn preference for Modest Mouse’s uncouth and unsophisticated material of the past. (Friday, 8:30-10, Aluminum Stage) –text: James H. Ewert Jr.–photo: Wendy Lynch