The Moon & Antarctica is the third studio album by American rock band Modest Mouse, released on June 13, 2000, by Epic Records.
The Moon & Antarctica peaked at number 120 on the US Billboard 200,
Background and recording
The album was the band's first released by a major record label, being issued on Epic Records.
The album was produced by Brian Deck, who first met the band at a concert in Detroit. "We ended up on a bill together at The Magic Stick in Detroit, and we got along really well, we hung out till the end of the night—and maybe consumed a fair amount of beer together" says Deck. Deck and Brock fell out of touch shortly thereafter, but reconnected a few years later, when Brock invited Califone (which included several members of Deck's band Red Red Meat) to hit the road as Modest Mouse's opening act.
The album was the first project to be recorded in Clava Studios in Chicago. When Modest Mouse band members arrived for the recording, the studio was not completely finished. "It laid him up in the hospital for a week," Deck says. "Then his jaw was wired shut for two or three months."
Music and lyrics
Despite the fans' common concern that the switch to a major record label would change the band's unique sound, Isaac Brock assured fans that this would not be the case, "I don't think the new album is at all overpolished or anything. We spent more time getting crazy sounds than making things sound polished."
Reception
The Moon & Antarctica was released to acclaim from music critics. Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, reported an average score of 82 based on 22 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Nick Catucci of The Village Voice noted the album's more streamlined production, in contrast to the lo-fi quality of their previous work, and complimented the fact that "the studio scrubbing leaves no noticeable film; even the effects—like the spacey guitar that launches 'Gravity Rides Everything'—ring true." Heather Phares of AllMusic felt that the production enhanced the album's introspective tone and called the album "their most cohesive collection of songs to date" and "an impressive, if flawed, map of Modest Mouse's ambitions and fears." In a negative review, Spins Chris Ryan felt that "mistaking subject for style, Modest Mouse has chosen to accentuate on a tendency to drift rather than an ability to write emotionally effective songs."
Accolades
Pitchfork ranked The Moon & Antarctica as the third best album of 2000, trailing Kid A by Radiohead and Ágætis byrjun by Sigur Rós. The album ranked at number 49 on The Village Voices Pazz & Jop year-end critics' poll. Pitchfork later named it the seventh best album of the years 2000 through 2004 and the sixth best album of the decade. Tiny Mix Tapes placed it at number 51 on their decade-end list. The Moon & Antarctica was included in Entertainment Weeklys "The New Classics", a list of the one hundred best albums released within 1983 to 2008. Rhapsody ranked the album at number four on its "Alt/Indie's Best Albums of the Decade" list.
As of October 2006 the album has sold 492,000 copies in United States. In March 2009, The Moon & Antarctica was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. In 2015, Vitamin String Quartet paid tribute to the album by covering it in its entirety.
Reissues
Isaac Brock was dissatisfied with the final mix and the album artwork for The Moon & Antarctica following its original 2000 release. According to an interview given in Filter in 2004, he intended to remix the album "on his own time, using his own money, simply to have a copy he alone could hear." Stephen M. Deusner of Pitchfork rated the remastered edition a 5.0 out of 10, writing highly of the original album itself but questioning the decision to re-release it just four years after its initial release, calling the additional material "paltry offerings" and commenting that "no one was really asking for it, and there's simply not enough here to justify the expense or even a rating as high as the original."
A vinyl and CD reissue was released on April 13, 2010, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the album, with both versions reverting to the original artwork and track listing. On April 27, 2015, Music on Vinyl reissued the album in two different variations in Europe, with one featuring remastered audio on transparent 180g vinyl in a production run limited to 500 pressings, and the other on standard black vinyl. Both removed the "locked groove" previously found on side 1 at the end of "Perfect Disguise".
Track listing
Personnel
;Modest Mouse
- Isaac Brock – guitars, vocals
- Jeremiah Green – drums, percussion
- Eric Judy – bass
;Additional personnel
- Ben Blankenship – lap steel guitar (1, 4), banjo (4), keyboards (5, 11, 14), guitar (8, 11, 15)
- Brian Deck – keyboards (6), drum programming (2)
- Ben Massarella – percussion (5, 7, 12, 15)
- Greg Ratajczak – guitar (7)
- Jeff Kennedy – lap steel guitar (5)
- Tyler Reilly – violin (3, 5, 7, 9, 13, 14)
- Tim Rutili – background vocals (11)
- Chiyoko Yoshida – background vocals (13)
Charts
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! Chart (2000)
! Peak<br />position
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