No One’s First, and You’re Next is the generous new EP from Modest Mouse. There are countless bands these days that would sell an eight-song, 33-minute disc as a full-length album, but Isaac Brock and company are making sure there’s no confusion about the origins of these songs. No One is eight cuts from the sessions that produced the band’s two most commercially successful albums — 2004’s Good News for People Who Love Bad News and 2007’s We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank. It’s clear, then, why this EP feels like an amalgam of the poppier leanings of Good News with We Were Dead’s twisted sea shanties.

Given that these songs were recorded alongside the band’s previously released material, it should come as no surprise that the band doesn’t break any new ground here. “Satellite Skin,” “Guilty Cocker Spaniels” and “I’ve Got It All (Most)” all would’ve fit comfortably on either album (more likely Good News). The only two really confounding tracks here are “King Rat” and “The Whale Song.” The former sounds like a demented big band track with blaring horns and an off-kilter swagger. The latter sounds like a throwback to the band’s more experimental album, 2000’s The Moon & Antarctica, being built around an instrumental intro with wailing guitar before working in some sludgy vocals.

“The Whale Song” might turn off some recent Modest Mouse converts, but for the most part, No One’s First is an impressive collection of songs that were ostensibly thrown away. It doesn’t provide any indication of where Modest Mouse goes from here, but it’s a nice stop-gap in the meantime.