Epic Records has decided to reissue Modest Mouse’s classic 2000 opus The Moon & Antarctica on double 180g vinyl to celebrate the tenth anniversary of its original release. This is great news for Modest Mouse fans everywhere because this album was impossible to find on vinyl prior to this.
Unfortunately Epic has not pulled out many bells and whistles for this reissue, not even affording a gatefold sleeve, meaning the two 180g discs are slid into the same sleeve. The vinyl covers themselves are sturdier than paper and come with nicely printed graphics that accompany the reinstated original artwork (the 2005 CD reissue had a different cover). Lyrics are provided on one side of the vinyl covers, which is nice but considering this is a fairly special reissue I believe it would not have been to much to ask for a separate booklet containing the lyrics and perhaps also some additional artwork or band photos.
A quick aside about the playing of the vinyl; it is supposed to have a locked groove which means that the final few seconds are repeated until you manually lift the needle. This is intended to give the effect of the song continuing infinitely so that the cut between tracks that are on opposite sides of the vinyl is not as noticeable. For instance “Perfect Disguise” and “Tiny Cities Made Of Ashes” are intended to bleed into each other, but because they are split on either side of the vinyl they are unable to; the locked groove is intended to keep the outro of “Perfect Disguise” playing in order to make the cut less obvious, but unfortunately the locked groove does not work with vinyl players that have automatically retracting arms, which is a shame.
Overall I’d say this is worth buying; although the packaging may not be any sort of deluxe deal it is sill produced in a classy manner and the album itself sounds glorious on vinyl. This was one of our top 10 albums of the 2000s and certainly deserves to be heard in this format.
