-Dear Modest Mouse,

I bought your new album, “Good News for People Who Love Bad News,” and after listening to it a couple times, I think I might have gotten a bunk copy. I think I only got half the drums on my album, and it seems a couple of the tracks are from the wrong album altogether.

I was really happy you decided to make an album after not making one for four years, so I went out and bought it right away. I’m sure you can understand my confusion when the first 10 seconds of my album wasn’t even you guys. It sounded more like that Dirty Dozen Brass Band.

I think the second track is right, but it doesn’t have Isaac Brock’s guitar on it; it sounds like some wimpy folkster’s guitar got put in by mistake. “Float On” sounds right except for those drunk guys singing in the background, and the drums sound all weird. I was surprised to see that it wasn’t Jeremiah Green but some Benjamin Weikel guy. Benny’s pretty good, but his playing is so boring. Could you please be friends with Jeremiah again?

There’s some guy singing and playing ukulele for 13 seconds where track five should be — was “Bury Me With It” supposed to go there? I really like that song “Bury Me With It,” but why is the drum machine playing with the drummer? Couldn’t he just play better? I like the next song, “Dance Hall,” even though you just yell about dance halls the whole time.

I think I accidentally got some songs from Isaac’s side project, Ugly Casanova. “Bukowski” is really great, but why didn’t you put it on the Ugly Casanova album? It’s nice that you’re doing Tom Waits songs, but I’ve never heard of “This Devil’s Workday,” and there’s a typo in the liner notes that says you wrote it. Could you tell me which song it is?

I’m really glad you guys finally released a full album but was disappointed when I didn’t get the whole album. Should I just send the album I bought and you can send the real album?

Sincerely,

Sam Cholke