It really doesn’t feel like Modest Mouse ever was off the radar, right? But save for their 2009 EP, No One’s First and You’re Next, a record largely filled with deep cuts and B-sides, the Washington band has been mostly quiet as a cohesive unit for the better part of a decade. Since releasing the full-length We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank in 2007, founding member and bassist Eric Judy moved on, as did legendary Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, who had recorded the album with them. They also continued to tour, mostly playing the summer festival circuit, and probably took some wholesome nature treks as well. All of this finally built up to a new album, Strangers to Ourselves (Epic Records).

As removed as this album might seem from the Modest Mouse timeline, it matches just about everything they’ve done post-2004. Starting with Good News for People Who Love Bad News and the surprise hit “Float On,” Modest Mouse became the great alternative rock radio sensation, and We Were Dead’s “Dashboard” cemented this reputation. Strangers’ lead single, “Lampshades on Fire,” seems to follow in this 21st century Modest Mouse tradition with its rhythmic intensity and frontman Isaac Brock’s signature “bah-bah-bahs.” Elsewhere, though, there are minute areas were Brock takes his band in a different direction. There’s the hip-hop influence found in “Shit in Your Cut” and “Pistol,” the latter of which sees Brock’s vocals resonate through some chunky, distorted filter in grating fashion. On “Wicked Campaign,” the soft touch of ’80s pop is applied in a layer of synth not unlike that used by bands like The Killers. However, Strangers is by-and-large familiar stuff, with their signature ultra-twangy guitars as ubiquitous as ever before (and particularly on-point on “The Tortoise and the Tourist”).

Strangers isn’t so much a progression as much as it is a lateral move for Modest Mouse and representative of what’s to be expected from this band going forward. Since their dual magnum opus at the turn of the century, The Lonesome Crowded West and The Moon and Antarctica, Modest Mouse has become a diluted band of highly manicured songs. They’ve honed their straight-to-radio skill set at this point, making music that is just good enough, but not truly exceptional.