Editorial Review:

Amazon.com:
With their interstellar (really!) lyrics and angular song structures, Modest Mouse tend to defy their self-deprecating band name. In truth, the trio's got some lofty ambitions, and The Moon and Antarctica indulges their grand dreams with pristine production and a vivid sonic backdrop. It also dives deeply into their geographical obsessions--always with the same subjective twists that made The Lonesome Crowded West and This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About such inspired wonders. Isaac Brock opens Moon with meditations on the universe's shape--all twisted into such a solipsistic tangle that they illuminate immediately how much these songs are about the mind as about the world. Rarely giving off the cage-jarring thickness of guitar rock, Moon's 15 tunes are shaped around vignettes of a disheveled head figuring out the rambling disconnections of postmodern society. Guitars wobble, Brock wails on vocals, and his band mates--Eric Judy and Jeremiah Green--help take each song away from any predictable formula and toward wherever they seem to want to go. This is a band as profoundly touched by suburbia as was writer Harold Brodkey. You can imagine Brock, Green, and Judy lying on wide-open lawns, philosophizing about the shape of the universe and coming up with lyric moments like this (sung to folky, spare acoustic guitar): "A wild pack of family dogs came running through the yard and as my own dog ran away I didn't say much of anything at all / A wild pack of family dogs came running through the yard as my little sister played; the dogs took her away, and I guess she was eaten up, okay." Replays of American Beauty, anyone? --Andrew Bartlett

Although this album and "we were dead..." are both very good, "good news for people who like bad news" is my first choice.

Average Rating:

Rating: - ok but not my favorite
Although this album and "we were dead..." are both very good, "good news for people who like bad news" is my first choice.

Rating: - Heartbreaking and inspiring
I had never really known of Modest Mouse when I bought The Moon and Antarctica. I tend to buy albums on a whim and in a flurry. Perhaps I read a review somewhere along the line and made a mental note of it. Whatever the case may be, the bottom line is this album has become so much to me. I was going through a really down time when I purchased it. My absentee father had just died (not seeing him for 16 years oddly made it even more devastating for me) and I was searching for something to hang onto to get me through. As soon as I listened to 3rd Planet, the opener, I was in tears of reflection and a sort of undercurrent of optimism. And that continued for weeks, if not months. I listened to it back to back sometimes. To say that Brock is a great vocalist would be incorrect, and to miss the point. He brings a certain jagged vulnerability to everything he writes and sings. He's sort of like a crazy poet. Just reading his lyrics do them no justice. It's when you hear them in the context of the song, with his many vocal styles that the meaning becomes clear. You feel what he's saying despite the lyrics being abstract. And on this album, we travel through life, death and 'what does it all mean?' with Brock. There are times when you'll tear up, times when you'll smile nostalgically and other times when you'll become frustrated because the questions he raises have no answer, and like him, you're begging for a clue.

There are no weak tracks on this cd. But my standouts are : 3rd Planet, Tiny Cities Made of Ashes, Perfect disguise, The Stars are Projectors and What People Are Made of (which puts a perfect blunt spin on all the rumination of the album)

You can't go wrong with this album. And I think you'll find yourself collecting more Modest Mouse albums soon after.

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Rating: - "Everything that keeps me together is falling apart."
Modest Mouse's prior studio release to Good News for People Who Love Bad News is of a very similar standard of high quality. What I find interesting about them is their ability to cover a wide range of styles and moods despite the singer Isaac Brock's voice's tendency to sound a bit silly. It's perfectly suited for offbeat songs like "3rd Planet", and you'd think it wouldn't work as well if they tried to get harder, but it does. "Tiny Cities Made of Ashes" is the perfect example of how he makes it work. The verses feature a double layer in both a falsetto and baritone that mix effectively, and the chorus is shouted and distorted. Mix in a great bass line and atmosphere and you have a song way cooler than you'd expect out of the band that did "Float On".

"3rd Planet" is fairly innocuous and catchy on a casual listen, but if you pay attention to the lyrics it's deeper than meets the eye and sets the tone for the whole record. "Gravity Rides Everything" follows it well, with pleasant strumming and a nice refrain. "A Different city" is another example of how they can make a serious track just as well as a quirky one. As the album goes on, some tracks are musically interesting but a bit overlong, sticking around when they don't need to, and others seem like silly throwaways, even if they're much darker when you pay attention to their lyrics. Still, although it's not as tight as it could be it's still quite good most of the time, solidifying Modest Mouse as one of my better liked artists. "What People Are Made Of" is the last song, and puts it together well, although the version I have is a rerelease that tacks on four extra tracks, all of which are alternate versions of existing songs, three of which appear originally on this very album. They don't add that much, but it's hard to say more music is a bad thing.

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Rating: - Beautiful Album
Perhaps Modest Mouse's magnum opus, this album contains a wide range of emotions and lots of musical variety. For those who think Modest Mouse has become a little watered down recently (which I tend to mostly disagree with), this should be the album of purity. Pure indie rock with a hint of lo-fi. It's what I call music.

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Rating: - A newbie review
I don't own too many CD's but this one is definitely my new favorite. I would best describe this music as meandering spaced out twang-punk. I love it. The lyrics are pensive and existential themed, yet the guitar riffs and vocal are full of driving off-kilter rhythms that make you feel like you could dance and sing along. There's a perfect mix of brooding melancholy and trippy off-kilter energy. Definitely buy this CD!

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Related Items:

Good News for People Who Love Bad News

We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank

This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About

Lonesome Crowded West

Building Nothing Out Of Something

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