An Eraser and a Maze arrives with a peculiar origin story: Isaac Brock initially conceived the material as an EP for his Ugly Casanova side project — the lo-fi collaborative outfit that produced the beloved Sharpen Your Teeth in 2002 — before expanding it into a full Modest Mouse record. This process of inflation, of small ideas becoming large ones, has always been part of how Brock works. His songs don't know where they're going when they start.

The album's most significant context is its label situation. After more than two decades at Epic Records, Modest Mouse is releasing An Eraser and a Maze on Glacial Pace, Brock's own imprint. The last time Modest Mouse put out an independent record, it was The Lonesome Crowded West in 1997 — a raw, caffeinated document of Pacific Northwest alienation that established the band's identity so completely that everything since has operated in its gravitational field.

Going back to independence at this stage is a choice. It means more control, less marketing infrastructure, and a different kind of accountability: the record succeeds or fails on its own terms. Brock's statement about turning off his filter — while immediately qualifying it as the thing every musician says — suggests someone who is genuinely trying to make something unmediated.

The tracklist reveals a 15-song album with titles like 'Third Side of the Moon,' 'Dogbed in Heaven/Give It A Skeleton,' and 'Stoner Party.' These names are either deeply surreal or precisely literal — with Brock, it's always both, and neither, and something else entirely. Lead single 'Look How Far,' out since March, is lean and direct, the guitar tone closer to Lonesome Crowded West than anything on The Golden Casket.

We know what Modest Mouse sounds like when they're cooking: they sound like Isaac Brock has found the exact wrong frequency for a feeling and is broadcasting it at full volume. An Eraser and a Maze, with its independent release, its Ugly Casanova origins, and its 15-song runtime, has every ingredient for that kind of record. June 5.