It’s been a minute since Modest Mouse hit New York City, but thankfully this week marks the band’s return. They’re touring in support of their most recent full-length album, 2015’s Strangers to Ourselves (stream it here), but the Pacific Northwest–based group staked out a place in indie rock some 20-odd years ago. Modest Mouse’s debut LP, This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About (stream it here), stands the test of time: It’s a ’90s classic, a punk-Americana-tinged treatise on the weird shit that hurts. The Lonesome Crowded West (stream it here) followed, establishing Modest Mouse’s math-y sound and frontman Isaac Brock’s trademark yelps. Into the aughts and onward, the band waded, then canon-balled, into pop rock and achieved massive mainstream fame with hits like “Float On” and “Dashboard.” But after 2007’s We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank (stream it here), the band took eight years to release Strangers. Finally above ground, the album is Modest Mouse through and through, sprinkled here and there with new instrumentals, but decidedly them. “Lampshades on Fire” (performed live, above), the hit single off Strangers, is a pop earworm. Its roots, though, echo back to This Is a Long Drive’s meditation on movement and its obsession over where to land: “Pack up again, head to the next place/ Where we’ll make the same mistakes/ Burn it up or just chop it down/ But this one’s done so where to now?” Modest Mouse play Kings Theatre on Tuesday. Tropical Fuck Storm open the show. —Rachel Brody | @RachelCBrody