Modest Mouse Rolls Stone

Los Angeles (E! Online) - Mickey they're not, but this Mouse certainly nabbed the biggest piece of cheese on the charts.

Just three years ago, Modest Mouse's Good News for People Who Love Bad News gave the group a career-high number-19 bow on the Billboard 200. Now with a fresh record and a revered new axe-man (The Smith's

Johnny Marr), the group avoided any and all mouse traps going straight to number one.

For the week ended Sunday, Modest Mouse's We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank floated its way to the top selling nearly 129,000 copies, according to the latest Nielsen SoundScan numbers.

We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, which was originally expected in stores last December, made its spring march to number one thanks in large part to buzz around Marr's participation and the group's red-hot radio hit "Dashboard." The single reached number 61 on the Hot 100 chart, another career-high for the Washington State group.

Modest Mouse's chart run was enough to hold

Joss Stone's Introducing Joss Stone in the two spot selling 118,000 copies. Joining the likes of

KT Tunstall, Corinne Bailey Rae, Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse in what appears to be a trend of female U.K. imports, Stone already went Top 10 in over 15 other countries with her new disc. Furthermore, her U.S. bow is both a career-best and it's the highest chart debut ever by a U.K. female artist in the Nielsen SoundScan-era, which first started tracking albums in '92.

The week previous, Philly soul singer Musiq Soulchild narrowly took the top spot with Luvanmusiq, besting Lloyd´s Street Love by just 5,000 copies. In round two, the two artists swapped leads with Musiq Soulchild falling seven spots to eight and Lloyd falling just five spots to seven, topping the R&B vet by less than 2,000 discs.

Meanwhile, as the rest of the American Idol world talks about Sanjaya Malakar's faux-hawk, season five finalist Elliott Yamin sold over 90,000 copies of his self-titled debut. Fittingly, Yamin and Chris Daughtry finished the season in third and fourth place respectively, and this week Yamin debuts at number three while Daughtry's self-titled spends a second week at four.

In what was an active week on the charts, 25-year-old R&B singer

Marques Houston sold nearly 69,000 copies of Veteran for a number five bow, another career best. For those counting at home, four new albums took over the top five spots, all four of which set new personal highs for the artists.

The rest of the Top 10, all holdovers, included Akon's Konvicted at six, Rich Boy's self-titled at nine and Amy Winehouse's Back to Black in the ten spot.

Further down the charts, Detroit once again sent in the clowns as Motor City rappers Insane Clown Posse sold 33,000 copies of Tempest for a number 20 finish. Not far on their clown-shoed heels, the Posse was followed by Baby Boy da Prince's Cross the Water with 26,000 copies at 26, Devin the Dude's Waitin' To Inhale with 25,000 discs at 30 and the Crime Mob's Hated on Mostly shaking down 22,000 copies at 31.

Other notable debuts included Stephen Marley's Mind Control at 35, the James Murphy-led LCD Soundsystem at 46 with Sound of Silver,

Willie Nelson,

Merle Haggard and

Ray Price's Last of the Breed at 64, Andrew Bird's Armchair Apocrypha at 76 and rapper El-P's I'll Sleep When You're Dead at 78.

Album sales overall were up two-and-a-half percent from the week previous, but still down over 18 percent from the same week in '06.

To recap, the Top 10 albums were as follows:

1. We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, Modest Mouse

2. Introducing Joss Stone, Joss Stone

3. Elliott Yamin, Elliott Yamin

4. Daughtry, Daughtry

5. Veteran, Marques Houston

6. Konvicted, Akon

7. Street Love, Lloyd

8. Luvanmusiq, Musiq Soulchild

9. Rich Boy, Rich Boy

10. Back to Black, Amy Winehouse