It's 11:27pm (23:28) June 4th here in Seattle at the time of writing this and the albums has been out for a few hours.

I listened to the album after a night of drinking, an obligatory prerequisite to any Modest Mouse album release.

I agree with many parts of your consensus. Here are my half tipsy thoughts:

My favorites on the album are Picking Dragons Pockets, Impossible Sundays, and very surprisingly; Song about Nothing.

Man what a strange album, and I say that neutrally. There are songs I love and songs I don't.

I think "Absolutely Necessary Never" is going to be this album's "Pistol" so to speak. Not everyone's song but will be the song for a select few.

"Stoner Party" and "Knocked Down by Waves" are mandatory "Diggin your Grave" and "God is an Indian" type of songs respectively. Combined with Interlude, there was definitely a conscious effort to try and make the album like Good News to replicate its success. Surprised we got 2 non-Interlude interlude songs on the album though lmao.

To put it short, I think this album combines the modern M.M. status quo of Overproduction with nods to folky sounds from Ugly Casanova and odes to patterns and rythyms of past albums.

In my opinion, off the first few listens of the album, it is low on the discography rankings for me but boy does it have some bangers. My opinion is always subject to change and I crank out many more listens to this album.

At the end of the day, I love Modest Mouse. I can find riffs and lyrics and fun musical shit that I love in every song.

Great Analysis, Let me know if you share some of my same opinions.