And here is where I abandon every single amount of musical elitism I’ve built up and out myself as the poser I am.

Because this is my favorite Modest Mouse record—by a pretty significant margin.

Maybe it’s because it’s the first record of theirs that I heard. Maybe it’s because at the deepest core of my being, I am a pirate and am thus a sucker for anything nautical-themed.

Or maybe it’s just because it’s a really, really great record.

After Good News For People Who Love Bad News, many people were quick to point to the band’s signing to Epic Records and the runaway success of “Float On” and decry them as sell-outs (interestingly enough, The Moon And Antarctica, their first record on Epic evaded such criticism). Many of those fans have since come around to Good News, but We Were Dead remains album non grata.

I understand a bit of where that distaste is coming from. While Good News was poppier than anything they had done before, it still had enough eccentric instrumentation and full-on weird moments. We Were Dead is a bit sleeker and more guitar-centric—most likely a result of the inclusion of Smith’s guitarist Johnny Marr, who pushes the album closer to post-punk than they’ve ever gotten. A few strings, accordions, and horns show up, but it’s nowhere near the Devil’s Dixieland Band that showed up in the middle of the record before.

But that sleekness doesn’t make it any less eclectic. Isaac Brock barks and rants like a lunatic. “March Into the Sea” crashes with his most violent vocal delivery ever. The diatribe about entropy at the end of “Parting of the Sensory” is the Platonic ideal of his rapidfire, madman-cleverness. His delivery on “Fly Trapped In a Jar” is so frantic that at times it feels like he’s channeling the missing, insane member of the Sugar Hill Gang.

It’s not all fire and sea-soaked brimstone though. Some moments are downright gorgeous. “Fire It Up” glistens with drum machines, delayed guitars, and a surprisingly tender vocal delivery. “Missed the Boat,” which features the Shins’ James Mercer, flexes their pop sensibilities as readily as “Float On.” “Little Motel” is hushed and delicate, but has all the emotional heft as the more frantic tracks.

The eight-minute opus “Spitting Venom” meanders through everything the band does well: deranged folk, anthemic indie, barking post-punk, delicate, and orchestral-fused ballads.

All that isn’t to say that this is the best Modest Mouse record, or even that it’s perfect. At sixty-two minutes, it’s a bit overwhelming in a single sitting—especially as dense as these tracks are. There’s not a bad song on here, but there might be too many. As much as I’ve listened to this record, the last two tracks feel almost entirely unfamiliar to me. But that’s more my own deficiency than Modest Mouse’s. Their first two full-lengths were over seventy minutes long—sixty-two is a breeze.

While this record might not get as much love as the ones that precede it, it absolutely deserves it. Despite the slander it receives as a sell-out record, it is still ambitious, gorgeous, and inspiring. And, it remains my favorite work from their catalog. And you can fight me on that.