Main menu
Fretplay home Submit tabs

Modest Mouse
Modest Mouse tabs Modest Mouse discography

Channels
Guitar channel Bass channel Guitar videos Reviews

Message Forum
Guitar forum Bass forum Bands and artists Promote your band Recent discussions All categories

Fretplay.com

Modest Mouse guitar tabs

CD reviews

The Moon & Antarctica

Modest Mouse - The Moon & Antarctica Audio CD

A fair review of the Modest Mouse "The Moon & Antarctica" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Modest Mouse reviews here, or go back to the Modest Mouse tabs.

Band: Modest Mouse
Title: The Moon & Antarctica
Rating:

Release Date: 2004-03-09
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: 3rd Planet 2: Gravity Rides Everything 3: Dark Center Of The Universe 4: Perfect Disguise 5: Tiny Cities Made Of Ashes 6: A Different City 7: The Cold Part 8: Alone Down There 9: The Stars Are Projectors 10: Wild Packs Of Family Dogs 11: Paper Thin Walls 12: I Came As A Rat 13: Lives 14: Life Like Weeds 15: What People Are Made Of 16: 3rd Planet - BBC Radio 1 Session 17: Perfect Disguise - BBC Radio 1 Session 18: Custom Concern - Instrumental BBC Radio 1 Session 19: Tiny Cities Made Of Ashes - BBC Radio 1 Session

Epic
You can definitely feel its theme throughout the entire album, and it sounds just like what the album cover looks like. In my opinion, this is easily Modest Mouse's best release to date. this album will take you to the warmest places in the universe (third planet, paper thin walls, gravity rides everything, wild pack of family dogs), to the loneliest, coldest outreaches of the universe (alone down there, the cold part) and to places right in between (lives, stars are projectors). As Isaac Brock discusses life, loneliness, space, time, the universe, love, you can feel your very own depersonalization from your life and into this album. No joke. Give it a few spins for it to kick in. Hell, just writing this review made me pull up my itunes and run the tracks.

One of the best and underrated...

Any album that can open up so beautifully with the songs of "3rd Planet" and "Gravity Rides Everything" is a great record off the bat. Modest Mouse have given us many gems over the years and this one is one of my favorites. Then through some musical ups and downs ends with "What People are Made of" which is one of those tracks that can sum up a lot of albums.

Lyrically good, melodically great, instrumentation good. Overall, a great effort on the part of these lads. One of the best indie albums!

Also, if you like this, check out the bluegrass tribute to Modest Mouse! It is friggin awesome and their version of "Gravity Rides Everything" I almost like better I am sorry to say!.

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.

Heartbreaking and inspiring
I tend to buy albums on a whim and in a flurry. I had never really known of Modest Mouse when I bought The Moon and Antarctica. 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.

"Everything that keeps me together is falling apart."
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. Modest Mouse's prior studio release to Good News for People Who Love Bad News is of a very similar standard of high quality. 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.

You can see a complete list of all Modest Mouse discography, or go back to the Modest Mouse tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.