The year was 1997, and the alternative rock industry was in the process of being revolutionized entirely. Though it’s collectively recognized that grunge died in 1994 with Kurt Cobain, the genre still loosely embodied the 90’s until Radiohead’s "OK Computer "and Bjork’s "Homogenic" inspired a shift from its scruffy, muddy aesthetic to something much more refined, precise, and accentuating each note. While most musicians were taken aback by this style and followed suit, indie-rock band Modest Mouse had a different agenda for their sophomore album, "The Lonesome Crowded West."

Contrary to the pristine sound that proved to be so effective in the aforementioned albums, "The Lonesome Crowded West" was, for the most part, still an ugly album, but ugly in a much different manner than grunge had been. Where grunge was centered on the excessive use of sludgy riffs and gravelly, slurred or snarled vocals, Isaac Brock’s choice of delivery was far more eccentric, displaying a trademark Western accent and lisp, quivering or shouted vocals and alternating between solitary riffs or funky clanging over the circular rhythms performed by bassist Eric Judy and drummer Jeremiah Green.

More importantly, "The Lonesome Crowded West" had a much more unique, nuanced theme than the dull lyrics exhibited by the majority of grunge music. Though there were several musicians who deviated from this algorithm, rock music in the nineties dealt with an acceptance of things like failed relationships, drug use, and living meaningless lives. These themes were certainly present in Brock’s lyrics, but he breathed a new, comedic and critical, breath into what had been said so many times.

While "The Lonesome Crowded West "isn’t entirely a concept album, as half of the songs correspond to one theme and the remaining half to others, it was written with a certain grievance in mind. This was ignited in Brock by his hometown, Issaquah, Washington, being subject to the construction of strip malls and the smothering of rural communities and small towns as a result. This theme is present throughout the album without a doubt, but songs regarding Christianity, social commentary, and fictional characters seem to occupy a generous chunk of it as well.

This contempt for industrialization is embodied in the album’s opening track, "Teeth Like God’s Shoeshine, "a seven-minute epic recognized mostly through lyrics like “Go to the grocery store, buy some new friends,” and “The malls are the soon to be ghost towns. Well, so long, farewell, goodbye,” which convey this resentment towards the abundance of businesses being built through Brock’s own mocking hyperbole. The track introduces the album and its theme alike in a very jagged and unrelenting manner. The band, themselves, expressed the goal of coming out with their guns blazing, taking a step back twice throughout the song to tenderly deliver the song’s most revealing lyrics, then violently erupting again into an explosion of distortion and screams, sending the listener reeling into the next song, a method not unlike that of Cap’n Jazz’s "Little League" or Sunny Day Real Estate’s "Rodeo Jones. "The lyrical theme found in "Teeth Like God’s Shoeshine," along with the usage of musical highs and lows, is also present in the album’s third track," Convenient Parking," which switches between a robotic description of new streets and industries being built and connected to one another, and a stuttered exhale of frustration as Brock supposedly struggles to find, well, convenient parking.""

The notion of strip-malls engulfing anything less than urban in this album results in a much sadder, more sentimental perspective from Brock himself, who was brought up in the very societies these industries are smothering. The album’s most renowned ballad, "Trailer Trash," sees a much younger Brock both recount the norms of living in a trailer park and express a distaste for the goals of the people he deems “fake.” This is undoubtedly a personal song, but conveys a fictional personality, as Brock did in fact live in a trailer part as a kid, but had no issue with the lifestyle, claiming it wasn’t any different than living in a conventional neighborhood.

Whether or not it was artificially achieved, this perspective made for the most heart-wrenching songs on the album, with the soft, acoustic confessional "Bankrupt on Selling" using elegant, yet comical biblical allusions and the realistic desire to truly be heard to represent every internal conflict Brock was enduring as a result of touring for their previous album. This track’s instrumental was written spontaneously by guitarist Dann Gallucci in their tour van, inspiring Brock to integrate more references to Christianity into the process of writing "The Lonesome Crowded West."

Isaac Brock is an atheist, so this attraction to religion in his lyrics resulted in allusions ranging from angry and critical to eccentric and comical. "Doin’ the Cockroach" utilizes both of these aspects, beginning with the lyrics, “I was in heaven, I was in hell. Believe in neither, but fear ‘em as well.” Brock explained these lyrics in a Pitchfork documentary of the album, stating, “Even though I quit believing in God, I’m still always looking over my shoulder, worried about being watched. That’s the thing that gets engrained in you (by Christianity), is that you’re always being watched by something.” This belief made the frivolous usage of Christian themes common in "The Lonesome Crowded West," appearing additionally in "Jesus Christ Was an Only Child "and the album’s final song, "Styrofoam Boots/It’s All Nice on Ice, Alright."

" "The goal for "Doin’ the Cockroach" wasn’t entirely expressed in its lyrics, however. The song goes on to describe the grimy, sinister people Brock assumes to occupy Hell and Greyhound busses alike, exclaiming “We’re doin’ the Cockroach, yeah!” when realizing he’s among them. The band mused at this phrase, and urged themselves to re-imagine “The Cockroach” as what Brock described as a “grubby, human dance.” They accomplish this as the song progresses, as it evolves from a solitary, creeping guitar riff into a steady dance beat while Brock’s guitar work and vocals become more frantic.

This type of clambering, funky jam that "Doin’ the Cockroach "gradually segued into served as the groundwork for "Lounge (Closing Time)," an extension of a song of the same name on their first album, "This is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About," distinguishing itself as far more dynamic than its predecessor. While the first incarnation of "Lounge" began more distant and suspenseful and erupted into a dance beat, the version on "The Lonesome Crowded West "wasted no time to make the listener dance, beginning with a stuttered, rhythmic riff and some comical lyrics about the scummy things that happen at a dance club, before changing tempo and energy drastically. The song begins full and inviting, and ends empty and lonesome, perhaps to reflect the empty personalities such settings attract.

The most distinct song on the album, however, came from a much different place than the rest, while still coincidentally reinforcing its themes. "Cowboy Dan "is two things that completely contradict each other. On the surface, one witnesses a satirical Western tale of a drunken cowboy who spends his time starting fights and driving big trucks like any old Yosemite Sam, but the energy of the song, coupled with a strained vocal delivery and minor key, suggest something much darker.

The song begins with a brooding, lingering guitar riff, only to be met by a pounding beat and vocals that suggest both profound anger and tragedy, as "Cowboy Dan’s" story could read both ways. The opening lyrics describe this cowboy as tough and prone to flying off the handle, while it’s later revealed that his agenda is to, as Brock himself puts it, “take out God.” This notion is so poetically disturbing that the primal vocals and instrumental outbursts seem so much more necessary than if the song were just about some drunken cowboy. Brock’s ability to take such a trivial theme and mold it into something so humanly impactful, and the band’s ability to tap into this angle, is what makes "Cowboy Dan" such a powerful track both in" The Lonesome Crowded West "and Modest Mouse’s entire discography.

"The Lonesome Crowded West "was two things 1997’s alt-rock scene thought it was trying to kill off- musically visceral and lyrically disenchanted. In a year where music moved toward inspiring a sense of wonder and escape in its listeners and projecting this message through a deliberate, polished sound, Modest Mouse spat in the face of both of these things, taking their music in a direction so far away from any competing group that "The Lonesome Crowded West "is still regarded as Modest Mouse’s strongest album.

Over the 20 years following the album’s release, Modest Mouse has accomplished so much, and made music much different than their monumental sophomore album, much of which resulted in the band enjoying a taste of mainstream success. One thing that was made clear over these two decades, even during the releases of their innovative and equally clever albums "The Moon and Antarctica "and "Good News for People Who Love Bad News, "is that Modest Mouse would never make an album that would tie their musical, lyrical, and thematic values together as successfully as they did in "The Lonesome Crowded West."