As a band or artist grows in popularity and is set to release a new album or EP, I sometimes find myself subconsciously comparing it their previous albums. Whether it’s wishing the artist would “regress” back to the material before they became famous, or whether I just simply preferred the older material, musically, it always seems that earlier albums are the rawer and more unrefined view you don’t get when record labels are breathing down their necks.
Modest Mouse is a band that continues to produce high quality music but falls into my inevitable preferences. Their earlier album of the late 90′s and early 2000′s possess a level of unedited, untouched brilliance that has been lost in more recent albums. It’s not to say No One’s First and You’re Next or We Were Dead Before The Ship Sank are bad albums. On the contrary, they still make the top of the list of my favorite albums in those years. But it is the aforementioned inability to conform to the demands of “popular music” that makes Modest Mouse’s early works so notable. In this post, I would like to focus on the modern-classic, The Moon & Antarctica.
Brent DiCrescenzo of Pitchfork.com beautifully surmises greatness in his review, “Every so often… an album comes along that palpitates our hearts, ignites our passion, and justifies our existence.” This album is The Moon & Antarctica. DiCrescenzo goes as far to call this rocks only major accomplishment since the birth of Radiohead’s OK Computer. I would hazard to agree with Brett and although I am not as poetic in delivery, I am confident in saying this album demands and deserves the critical response it deserved when it was released (2000). Every song on the album is fantastic and adds to the overall sense of self-introspection the music brings on. Here’s a few tracks to highlight to album:
3rd Planet -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsnELWjsCsA
Gravity Rides Everything –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8crIHgjG1_I
I Came As A Rat –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyppWrs0RTs&feature=fvst
Quoted:
“The universe is shaped exactly like the Earth. If you go straight long enough you’ll end up where you were.”
