The year 2000, the beginning of a new millennium; I’m pretty sure if you try hard enough you’ll remember how it went down. The Y2K bug – that supposedly inevitable crash of modern society – was a no-show. This was a world before 9/11, the Patriot acts and mass-frenzy at the thought of a slight threat to our well-beings. In the year 2000, Modest Mouse released their seminal album, and major label debut 'The Moon and Antarctica'. The previous album, 'Lonesome Crowded West', depicted a bleak view of strip malls, wide open concrete spaces and tumbleweed – a land where Isaac Brock finds himself in a disparaging lonely state of mind. This time around, however, 'The Moon and Antarctica' finds a far more hopeful Brock, pondering the mysteries of the cosmos, oceans and the human psyche.

Modest Mouse are an extremely tight and effective three-piece group. Eric Judy’s bass playing is inventive and unrestricted, given free reign to supply fantastic backdrops to opuses such as 'Dark Centre of the Universe', while Isaac Brock’s guitar with it’s weird and wonderful takes on tremolo dives during the harmonics adds an eerie yet optimistic atmospheric edge to the songs. The aforementioned 'Dark Centre of the Universe' is the centrepiece of the album, building up from a slow start with haunting harmonics, only to kick you into back into your seat as soon as you begin to drift away. 'A Different City' is the clear single of the record, grooving on a Pixies-like guitar line that could send you insane had you been too intently listening. The beginning of the album is fantastic, “3rd Planet” comes along as a fantasizing ditty, built on a simple guitar line with provocative lyrics.

The only negative point I could make about this album is that the middle section of the album seems to get bogged down in melancholy and breaks up the momentum from the first 6 songs. This is only a minor niggle, since the three songs involved in this section of the album are individually outstanding, even if they run into a combined total of nearly 20 minutes. Simply put, this album is an essential purchase; easily one of the best albums this side of the millennium. If you like inventive and provocative Indie Rock, then Modest Mouse are the band for you.

Chris Luck