Modest Mouse: The Moon & Antarctica ---Ink Blot Magazine

Modest Mouse: The Moon & Antarctica

at a glance...

Hometown: Issaquah, WA
Year Formed: 1993

Members:
Issac Brock -guitars, vocals
Jeremiah Green -drums
Eric Judy -bass
With...
Ben Blankenship -lap steel guitar, banjo, keyboards
Tyler Riley -violin
Ben Massarella -percussion
Brian Deck -keyboards
Greg Ratajczak -guitar

Bands in the family:
Built To Spill, Love As Laughter, Red Stars Theory, Ugly Cassanova, Lync, Murder City Devils, Mavis Piggot, Sunny Day Real Estate, 764-HERO

Notes:

Emo-esque indie rock band Modest Mouse was formed in 1993 in Issaquah, WA by vocalist/guitarist Isaac Brock, bassist Eric Judy and drummer Jeremiah Green. Their 1994 self-titled debut single was released on Calvin Johnson's K Records. On the Up label, they released two 1996 LPs, This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About and Interstate 8. After returning to K, Modest Mouse released The Fruit That Ate Itself in 1997; its 1998 follow-up, The Lonesome Crowded West, brought them to national attention, and they signed to Sony. The rarities collection Building Nothing Out of Something appeared on Up in early 2000, followed by The Moon and Antarctica on Epic.

Modest Mouse
The Moon & Antarctica
Sony/Epic, Released 2000

Tainted by the band's rodent moniker, a friend's opinion that they sound like Built To Spill for small children, and rumblings of their live shows being hit or very, very miss led us to commit the mortal sin of prejuding Modest Mouse. Thou Shalt Not Be Musically Closed-Minded should be 11th commandment, because The Moon & Antartica is actually quite enlightening. The combination of its earthy, fatalistic lyrics, Hipgnosis-inspired album artwork (the award-winning team that created Pink Floyd album covers) and band members named Issac, Jeremiah, and Eric (Jericho) paint a surreal biblical landscape within the text of the liner notes.

The opening track, "3rd Planet" unleashes angry pessimistic memories and gloomy foretellings of a love that spirals outward between brazen, angular tantrums of distorted electric guitar. The songs continue to weave in and out of introspective moods that (with the help of lush, sonic soundscapes) transcend the darkness of loss to the glory of resurrection. "What People Are Made Of" seems to end the album conclusively with swirling bursts of guitar and fragile finger picking before releasing a triumphant fit of raw emotion, scribbled in Isaac's trademark kid-with-a-cold vocals.

The music on The Moon & Antarctica is as lonely and desolate as the title suggests - the lyrics scream cynically of the cruel and selfish ways of mankind. In "Dark Center of the Universe," Issac brashly sings, "I'm really damn sure that anyone can equally easily fuck you over," revealing the notion that the least likely people can be overwhelmingly disappointing. But, some people - and bands - that you once wrote off, can often shock you with genuine heart and soul.

If you like Modest Mouse, check out:
Built To Spill Keep It Like A Secret
Sunny Day Real Estate How It Feels To Be Something On
Pavement Terror Twilight
The Pixies Doolittle
764-Hero Get Here and Stay
Grandaddy The Sophtware Slump
Death Cab for Cutie Something About Airplanes

-- Joanna Lux/Eric Shea

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