Up to this point, the Washington-state indie-rock trio Modest Mouse has been captivated by the minutiae of daily life. Now, as the title of their fourth album suggests, they've gone macrocosmic. Moving beyond the enclosed landscapes of 1997's The Lonesome Crowded West, the band and producer Brian Deck boldly roam from the homegrown country licks of "Wild Packs of Family Dogs" to the otherworldly strings of "The Cold Part" on their new album. What is lost in warm immediacy is gained in eclectic cool: On "Tiny Cities Made of Ashes," the band fractures its funky beat into abstract percussive art. Singer-guitarist Isaac Brock still sounds as earthy as dirt behind his veil of vocal effects when he observes, "The world is my ashtray/Our hearts pump dust/And our hair's all gray." With The Moon and Antarctica — a place where "the universe is shaped exactly like the Earth" ("3rd Planet") — Modest Mouse show they can find microscopic humanity even within the most expansive spaces.

“My President”

Young Jeezy teams up with Nas on this track, in which he compare his own success with the idea of an African-American winning the Democratic Party's nomination in the 2008 presidential election. "When I pulled up in my car, that s--- was unbelievable to people in my neighborhood because they were like, 'We grew up with him. How the hell did he accomplish this?'" he told Rolling Stone. "I feel like it was the same way with Obama. I grew up all this time, but I've never seen a black man this close to running this country."