5. Interstate 8 EP (1996)

Like many indie bands of the era, Modest Mouse released several singles and EPs that are as crucial to the band’s discography as any of their full-length albums. (Some of these were compiled on the collection Building Nothing Out Of Something.) Technically a five-song EP augmented by six demos, Interstate 8 is a bridge between two of the group’s most enduring albums. The band must have taken the expansion of the abbreviation ‘EP’ — that is, extra player — quite literally, as Interstate 8 clocks in at a not-very-pithy 55 minutes. Fans of This Is A Long Drive For Someone With Nothing To Think About, released only four months earlier, will want to own Interstate 8 for the chugging title track and the spindly “Broke,” both of which sound like continuations of the deep, expansive whimsy perfected on that album. Though the rest of the EP doesn’t quite reach the heights set by the first two songs, Interstate 8 nevertheless demonstrates the band on something of a roll, and remains an essential part of the Modest Mouse story.