The King of Staten Island is a hangout movie, which might not come as too big of a surprise considering it’s directed by Judd Apatow. Yeah, it’s not a short movie, a staple for Apatow. And it kind of drifts – not aimlessly; there is considerable aim – but certainly with a lack of urgency, from vignette to vignette of Scott’s (Pete Davidson) aimless (now, yes, he is aimless) life.
There’s something strangely comforting about The King of Staten Island. And I think it is that deliberate pacing. In a world right now when things change in a fraction of every second, The King of Staten Island is on its own metronome. So much that it’s difficult at first to switch from the wavelength of the real world to the wavelength of this movie, but after you do, it’s nice. Just a day hanging out with some pals. Something most of us haven’t done in months.
The King of Staten Island is loosely based on Pete Davidson’s own personal life. Loosely in that Scott’s father died in 2004 (Davidson’s father tragically died during the attacks of September 11, 2001). And also loosely that Scott isn’t a famous person who is in the cast of Saturday Night Live. Scott is an aspiring tattoo artist (kind of subbing in for Davidson’s comedy career) who doesn’t do much of anything but give his friends less than great tattoos and hang out with drug dealers.
After giving an underage kid a tattoo, Scott is confronted by that boy’s father, Ray (Bill Burr), who then begins courting Scott’s mother, Margie (Marisa Tomei), to the dismay of Scott. At its heart, The King of Staten Island is about the relationship between Scott and Ray. Scott, adrift, with no real plan to do much of anything. And Ray, a firefighter like Scott’s father, who is both tough as nails and just trying to do his best.
Again, yes, it’s long. Judd Apatow makes long movies. It’s almost weird to complain about it at this point because it’s just literally a thing he always does. And I like that his movies are long. I think Apatow creates characters that need time to marinate so we get the full desired emotional impact. But it’s a specific wavelength, and if you don’t think you’ll have the patience for what I’m describing, then, no, you probably won’t. (Though, there is one sequence I can’t really go into the details of for spoiler reasons, that I could have maybe done without. Just because it’s so unlike the rest of the movie and I truly feel the film doesn’t need it.) And with Pete Davidson’s Scott, what’s interesting is over the course of this film, we see a full arc in his life, yet it hasn’t changed all that much. I see some people kind of guessing the plot of this movie is Scott eventually wants to be a fireman like his father. And from the marketing and the trailer, I can see where that misconception comes from. But that is not at all the plot of The King of Staten Island. And Davidson gives a surprisingly nuanced performance as Scott. This isn’t the “self-deprecating, yet cool” persona he, mostly, does on “Weekend Update.” Davidson lets his guard down for this role and, in turn, delivers something pretty great.
But the big standout here is Bill Burr. Burr has always been lurking in the shadows of mainstream success … just on that cusp. It was kind of a “cool thing” if you knew who Bill Burr was or was familiar with his comedy. Last fall his stock exploded after one episode of The Mandalorian (and he’s coming back for more in the upcoming season). Now here’s Burr as almost the co-lead, trading verbal barbs (and later, physical ones) with Pete Davidson and it’s an absolute pleasure to watch. I hope The King of Staten Island leads to even more Bill Burr in our lives.
Look, this is a pretty tumultuous time in the United States right now. When I first watched The King of Staten Island, the biggest story in the news was Covid-19 and, yes, I found it comforting just watching a movie about living life and trying to be a better person. Obviously a lot has changed since then and, no, there’s no claim here that The King of Staten Island is in any way relevant to current events. (Well, other than the continued threat of Covid-19 and the firefighters who still go out there every day to save lives.) And it’s weird to even be writing a movie review right now, but that’s literally a part of my job, so this was it. But, regardless, I still enjoyed it. And I hesitate to call it a “distraction” from what’s going on because, in a time like this, people need to stay focused, not distracted. But if you do need a, let’s say, mental break, The King of Staten Island is pretty good for that.
FTR is set to make their in-ring Dynamite debut this week, but that doesn’t mean they’ve said yeah to long-term All Elite Wrestling contracts.
After finally being released from their WWE contracts, The Revival pulled up to AEW on May 27, calling themselves FTR, to confront their old rivals The Young Bucks. It was a career move many fans anticipated even before Cash Wheeler (fka Dash Wilder) and Dax Harwood (fka Scott Dawson) officially left WWE, but, according to the tag team, their current storyline on Dynamite doesn’t mean they’re locked down with AEW in the long term.
On the podcast The Jim Cornette Experience, Wheeler explained that “we’re negotiating still” with AEW. Despite these ongoing negotiations, AEW signed them to a “short-term, almost handshake deal because they want to get this thing done finally because it’s been talked about for so many years.” FTR is currently “not under any long-term obligation with anybody.”
Hardwood said he believes Tony Khan is “allowing us to appear on these handshake deals” because he has “full trust” in FTR – and he’s a fan of the tag team. Hardwood went on to explain (transcript from Wrestling, Inc.):
I think he really believes that with myself and Cash, he really believes that we are the guys who can get over. During this pandemic, he wants us to give this match with the Bucks that everyone’s been dreaming about for years, and years, and years, and he wants to be the first guy to get that match.
As cities around the nation continued to host protests of the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd this weekend, Compton, California natives Kendrick Lamar and DeMar DeRozan put in an appearance at their city’s Peace Walk alongside Russell Westbrook, the Compton Cowboys, and thousands of citizens. According to Complex, Compton Mayor Aja Brown spoke to the attendees of the march, calling it an inspiring example of local unity.
“Thousands came together—men, women,and children—to peacefully march for unity, justice, and peace for all,” she wrote on Instagram. “Today, we demonstrated that the LOVE we have for one another is powerful. Thank you to everyone that came out and to those that wanted to, but couldn’t … As I said today, this moment is not the ending, but the beginning of a new era—a movement to engage, educate and empower Compton to mobilize, organize and take action, especially when it counts.”
Kendrick didn’t make an official statement, but his words have become the de facto soundtrack of the protest, as his 2015 To Pimp A Butterfly single “Alright” re-entered the Billboard charts thanks to an increase in streams. Meanwhile, J. Cole, Jhene Aiko, Kehlani, and more have been spotted at protests as well, lending their voices and support to the movement.
See images from Compton’s Peace Walk above.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
Grammy Award winner Leon Bridges teamed up with LA jazz musician and hip-hop artist Terrace Martin on a track from the perspective of a Black man taking his final breath. They originally wrote the song for a future album, but in light of the movement surrounding George Floyd’s murder, Bridges and Martin elected to share the single early.
Over a rolling beat inflected with brass percussion provided by Martin, Bridges croons his poignant lyrics. “Hoping for a life more sweeter / Instead I’m just a story repeating / Why do I fear with skin dark as night? / Can’t feel peace with those judging eyes,” Bridges sings.
In a statement about the track, Bridges discussed drawing influences from his own experience growing up in Texas and facing prejudice:
“Growing up in Texas I have personally experienced racism, my friends have experienced racism. From adolescence we are taught how to conduct ourselves when we encounter police to avoid the consequences of being racially profiled. I have been numb for too long, calloused when it came to the issues of police brutality. The death of George Floyd was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. It was the first time I wept for a man I never met. I am George Floyd, my brothers are George Floyd, and my sisters are George Floyd. I cannot and will not be silent any longer. Just as Abel’s blood was crying out to God, George Floyd is crying out to me. So, I present to you Sweeter.”
Echoing Bridges’ statement, Martin said the song was written for the heart: “It is always an honor to share a platform with my dear brother Leon Bridges. This is meditation music; it is not music for the ears but rather music for the heart. I truly believe that eyes have been deceiving us for so long but the heart always tells the truth. The heart needs to be repaired. Black folk have been deceived so many years, the only thing that can turn it around is a heart full of love.”
“All we are is dust in the wind, dude” never fails to prompt a chuckle, which means that any time is a welcome time for an update on Bill & Ted Face The Music. The long-anticipated threequel — the grand reteaming of Alex Winter as Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Keanu Reeves as Ted “Theodore” Logan — is still due in theaters on August 21. That’s not too far away, really! Orion Pictures could drop a trailer at any moment. And that day might be Tuesday, June 9, from the looks of a guitar-emoji-filled tweet from Winter, who is teasing that “Tuesday is Bill & Ted day, just sayin.”
Tuesday is Bill & Ted day, just sayin’ @BillandTed3
We could definitely use a little sunshine, in the form of awesome music that transforms Earth and encourages peace and prosperity, right about now. Not only do we want some Bill & Ted to make 2020 better, but tomorrow actually sounds like the perfect day — 6/9 — for this to go down. Nice. People definitely noticed.
If a Bill and Ted 3 trailer drops on 6/9 that will be the Most Excellent “For the people” move in the history of film.
— Michelle Elizabeth (@PiXxieStiX666) June 8, 2020
It’s truly excellent news. Not only will Reeves and Winter be back for Face The Music, but William Sadler will return as Death. Brigette Lundy Paine and Samara Weaving will be portraying the daughters of Bill and Ted, respectively, and we’ll also see Anthony Carrigan, Kid Cudi (as himself), and some archival footage of George Carlin as Rufus.
Bill & Ted Face The Music will arrive on August 21.
Lady Gaga has spent some time at the top of the charts in her day, so the news she received this weekend isn’t uncharted territory for her: Her latest album, Chromatica, has debuted at No. 1 on the June 13-dated Billboard 200 chart, making it her sixth No. 1 album overall.
The album claimed the top spot thanks to 274,000 equivalent album units earned in the US during the week ending June 4. That’s a significant total, as it represents the biggest week for an album by a woman in 2020, and the fifth-biggest week overall this year. Gaga’s six No. 1 albums have come during a nine-year-and-two-day stretch, which is the fastest a woman has claimed a half-dozen chart-toppers. The second-fastest is Taylor Swift, who did it in ten years and nine months.
Gaga is also now one of only eight women with at least six No. 1 albums, joining Beyonce, Mariah Carey, Britney Spears, Swift (six each), Janet Jackson (seven), Madonna (nine), and Barbra Streisand (eleven). The only other woman to have a No. 1 album this year is Selena Gomez, whose Rare topped the charts.
Elsewhere on the chart, Jimmy Buffett debuts at No. 2 with Life On The Flip Side, his highest-charting album in 15 years. Run The Jewels also managed a No. 10 debut for RTJ4, their highest chart placement yet. This is despite the fact the album’s early Wednesday release meant only two days of listening activity were tracked for this week’s chart. Per usual, the duo also gave digital downloads of the album away for free.
In Why I Write, George Orwell observed a truism that transcends any era: “In our age, there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’ All issues are political issues.”
Orwell nailed it. In 2020, politics seep into our lives in almost every way. Racism, gender bias, food systems, public health, police violence, Indigenous genocide… the woes we face as people are deeply rooted in our political system. Even the means by which you’re reading this — the internet — is inextricable from the political machine.
There’s a flip side, though. Politics has the ability to inspire us to action and offer avenues for tenaciously pursuing a better future. It has the potential to launch movements and, ideally, be a vital ingredient in the universe’s gradual arc toward justice. If we’re able to make sense its tangled mix of malleable facts, opinions, and veiled interests. It’s a ton to navigate and the onus is on you to stay informed.
If you truly want to be “woke” with regard to any political issue, you’ll have to dig and dig until you find something that you decide nears the truth. To start your journey, check out these ten great political documentaries currently streaming on Netflix.
Ava DuVernay’s look at America’s deeply rooted systemic racism is essential viewing. Named for the 13th amendment in which chattel slavery was ended but penal slavery was enshrined, 13th (our review) examines the laws and culture that have reinforced an oppressive system against people of color.
The film expertly underscores the fact that, in America, the road from the end of slavery toward equality continues to be long and full of strife.
You’ll either walk away from this documentary wanting to burn it all down or glad a man like Roger Stone exists. Stone was instrumental in turning modern politics away from facts and professional records toward the use of emotion and vitriol to gain power — something he’s deeply proud of.
The film reveals Stone — who’s now a bona fide felon — to be a man of so many perplexing layers, ranging from inspirational to infuriating, often within a single sentence. Get Me Roger Stone is an account of how we got from Nixon to Trump and how emotion, misinformation, and flat-out misanthropy can win elections.
There are few words in the American political vernacular more maligned and misrepresented than “feminist.” That makes this Netflix documentary a must-watch. The film traces the steps of feminism from the late 1960s to modern-day along a winding road of triumphs and setbacks for women.
This is an American history that’s crucial for all Americans know and Feminists: What Were They Thinking makes for a great entry point to a movement that’s changing the world for the better day-by-day.
Over 300 new laws have gone on the books limiting abortions across America since the ascendency of George W. Bush in 2001. Right now, abortion, women’s rights, and medical freedoms are at the epicenter of the American political zeitgeist, and Reversing Roe is there to parse that political battlefront.
The film dives into the fight over reproductive rights from both sides and asks us to come forward and really search for what we believe in when it comes to abortion. This isn’t light watching for a casual Sunday. This is a civic duty in documentary form.
Nobody Speak isn’t a perfect documentary. It meanders from the main (and tantalizing) story of Peter Thiel’s war on Gawker to smaller tales of a newspaper in Nevada getting bought out by billionaires with agendas. The latter half of that story is a tale as old as time (just look up William Randolph Hearst and Rupert Murdoch).
But the main storyline — Peter Thiel using Hulk Hogan as the way to revenge kill Gawker for outing his sexuality — is spellbinding storytelling that serves as one of the greatest tests of the first amendment in the modern era.
This year’s winner for Best Documentary Feature at the Oscars — and Barack and Michele Obama’s first film project — is a fascinating look at how real-life is effected by economics and politics. American Factory takes a dive into a Chinese company, Fuyao (a glass company), opening up a facility in an old auto-factory in Ohio.
The fly-on-the-wall documentary follows American factory workers and their Chinese counterparts through their experience of working in a globalized marketplace. It’s an eye-opening look at the stark reality of our global economy, viewed from the ground level with the actual people living it.
Knock Down The House takes a look at how progressives made moves after Trump’s 2016 win. The film follows the campaigns of four outsider women — Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Amy Vilela, Cori Bush, and Paula Jean Swearengin — as the fight to gain seats in the House of Representatives during the 2018 election cycle.
The support and endorsement from Justice Democrats and Brand New Congress helped propel these candidates to the national stage, highlighted by Ocasio-Cortez’s victory. The overall film is a great lesson in how grassroots politics can work.
This Errol Morris documentary is harrowing. The film was cobbled together from 33 hours of interviews with former U.S. Secretary of Defense (and former member of Congress and former advisor to republican presidents) Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld offers a window into the thinking process of military-industrial complex stooges at the highest ranks of the American political system.
It’s hard to watch as Rumsfeld smiles and laughs about American expansionism (wherein untold millions perished in for-profit wars) through the guise of protecting American citizens. And that’s not even the main part of the documentary. This film serves as a fascinating and frightening look into how a conservative and very capitalistic mind functions while making continual excuses for war crimes.
This film feels like a time-capsule to a completely different time. Mitt chronicles the life and times of now Republican senator from Utah who was then a Republican senator from Massachusetts as he tries to become president in 2008 and 2012.
The 2008 section of the film is a bread-and-butter political drama as Romney faces off against John McCain for the GOP nomination and loses. The 2012 portion of the film — where Romeny wins the nom but losses to incumbent Barak Obama — is more personal and, well, tragic as personal issues start plaguing the nominee’s life.
The way we receive information has changed dramatically since the advent of social media. The ability for foreign actors — and even just bad actors in the private sector — to poison the well of thought has increased exponentially. The Great Hack shows that for-profit social media platforms have almost no intention of stopping the tidal wave of lies poisoning our brains (this has been confirmed in the following years over and over again).
They accomplish by looking at how groups like Cambridge Analytica used our data to promote massive misinformation campaigns around the U.K.’s Brexit and the 2016 U.S. Presidental election. It’s fascinating, sure. But, really, this is an indictment of how social media masquerades under the banner of “freedom of speech” purely to get hold of our data and sell it to the highest bidder.
It’s been 17 years since the so-polarizing-they-might-be-underrated Matrix sequels, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, came out, and with such a long gap between films, Keanu Reeves didn’t think he was going to reprise his role as Neo again. But then last August, surprise surprise, it was announced that The Matrix 4 was in development with Lana Wachowski returning as director and writer (it will not be a Psycho II scenario). That, and the “beautiful script” she wrote with Aleksandar Hemon and David Mitchell, is the reason why he decided to don the sunglasses once more.
“Lana Wachowski wrote a beautiful script and a wonderful story that resonated with me,” Reeves told Empire Online. “That’s the only reason to do it. To work with her again is just amazing. It’s been really special, and the story has, I think, some meaningful things to say, and that we can take some nourishment from.”
Carrie-Anne Moss (Trinity) had a similar reason for coming back. “I never thought that it would happen. It was never on my radar at all,” she said. “When it was brought to me in the way that it was brought to me, with incredible depth and all of the integrity and artistry that you could imagine, I was like, ‘This is a gift.’ It was just very exciting.”
We still don’t know what the heck The Matrix 4 (release date May 21, 2021) is about, but whatever the plot, I’m sure Elon Musk will misinterpret it.
There’s something about one century concluding and another beginning that makes artists feel extra ambitious. As the end of the ’90s loomed, it became de rigueur for forward-thinking indie and alternative rock bands to make their grand studio-obsessed masterpieces. It was a time when the very idea of rock music itself was in the process of being dismantled, so it could be put back together as an entirely new thing for an entirely new millennium.
In 1999, acid-laced Oklahoma psych-rock band The Flaming Lips produced The Soft Bulletin, ditching their fuzzy guitars in favor of highly orchestrated, Pet Sounds-inspired melancholy pop. The following year, Radiohead emerged from a studio hibernation that lasted for more than a year with a strange, defiantly anti-rock LP called Kid A that Thom Yorke claimed was like “getting out an eraser and starting again.” Also in 2000, bands like Sigur Ros and Godspeed You! Black Emperor used rock instrumentation to create vast ambient soundscapes that might stretch on for more than 20 minutes. By the end of that year, Wilco would begin work on their own deconstructionist, “experimental” masterwork, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, whose tortured creation story would nearly become as beloved as the album itself.
And then there was Modest Mouse, whose strange and staggering third album, The Moon & Antarctica turns 20 this week. Along with Radiohead, Modest Mouse is the most successful of these turn-of-the-century bands, achieving a level of popularity that included a genuine hit song, “Float On,” which was the centerpiece of 2004’s platinum-selling Good News For People Who Love Bad News. Unlike many of their ’90s indie peers — including Pavement, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Built To Spill — Modest Mouse survived and thrived in the aughts, hitting the decade’s indie wave perfectly with the right single, adding scores of casual fans to a solid base of obsessive listeners.
In that sense, The Moon & Antarctica is a crucial pivot point not just for the band but for indie music overall. If Modest Mouse’s early albums helped to define the boilerplate sound of ’90s indie rock — chunky guitars, a loose and bombastic rhythm section, shout-y vocals, wry and often insightful lyrics — The Moon & Antarctica paved the way for what indie became in the 21st century. Rather than present three dudes bashing away sweatily just like they did on stage, this album was elegant and impeccably crafted, seamlessly integrating elements of folk, country, psychedelia, disco, and orchestral music. But these diverse elements counterintuitively made Modest Mouse sound (especially in retrospect) more like a “normal” rock band, smoothing out their rough edges and sweetening their most acidic attributes, a process that was finalized on the blockbuster Good News.
It’s also a record that helped to put to bed many of the rote arguments that were endemic to ’90s indie. As Modest Mouse’s first release after leaving the indie label Up and signing with the corporate behemoth Epic, The Moon & Antarctica was framed by the music press as a potential “sell out” move. And yet the album was ultimately one of their most acclaimed works, and in time the anxiety about Modest Mouse being adversely affected by signing with a major label would come to be viewed as a canard from a bygone century. Just four years later, contestants were singing “Float On” on American Idol. Anyone who pointed out that the infectiously airy riff from that song sounds like U2 playing Deep Blue Something’s “Breakfast At Tiffany’s” was bound to come off as a hipster scold. In their own small way, Modest Mouse had changed the world.
When Modest Mouse first emerged in the late ’90s as seemingly overnight underground sensations, they had the benefit of deep mythology centered on their mercurial singer, guitarist, and songwriter, Isaac Brock. Barely out of high school at the time, he had already experienced a lifetime’s worth of outsider weirdness.
The outlines of his biography are already well-known to Modest Mouse fans: Born in 1975, Brock spent his early years in Montana and Oregon, and was shaped by spending his formative years in a Christian religious sect called the Grace Gospel Church that encouraged even the youngest members to speak in tongues. His family also spent a few years living in a trailer park. By age 11, he relocated with his mother and sister to Issaquah, Washington, a community near Seattle, where his mom eventually remarried. As for young Isaac, he took up in a shed next to his parent’s home, which is where he learned how to play guitar. In time, it would become Modest Mouse’s first rehearsal space.
What makes this origin story more that just mere trivia is that Modest Mouse’s early albums and EPs seem to derive directly from the milieu of Brock’s life. The signature LP of this period, 1997’s The Lonesome Crowded West, is an incredible snapshot of the weird old GummoAmerica that was in the process of disappearing with the rest of the 20th century. In songs like “Trailer Trash,” “Truckers Atlas,” and “Cowboy Dan,” Brock writes evocatively about backwoods eccentrics without sentiment or judgment, giving them their due as iconoclasts without denying their menace or profound sense of desolation.
Brock has said the album was a reaction against seeing his hometown get “mall-fucked” by encroaching gentrification brought on by the emerging tech industry in the Pacific Northwest. This “paving of the west” would eventually homogenize the entire country, which makes The Lonesome Crowded West feel prescient in the same way that OK Computer is about the digital totalitarianism of the internet. It’s also, like OK Computer, an unabashedly BIG guitar-rock record, nearly maxing out the capacity of a compact disc at 74 minutes.
For Kid A, Radiohead opted to renounce the BIG guitar-rock-ness of OK Computer, in favor of something far more claustrophobic and introverted. While their musical approach was otherwise radically different — they couldn’t help but sound maximalist no matter their change in direction — Modest Mouse also felt compelled to gaze inward on The Moon & Antarctica, an instinct that seems entirely in line with the times. At the start of this new era, everybody (but especially rock bands) had to figure how, or even if, they could find a way to be in the new era.
Crucially, this reimagining of Modest Mouse meant tamping down — if not outright jettisoning — the most abrasive, punk-oriented aspects of their music. The Lonesome Crowded West is defined by its furiously animated choogle, a willful and aggressive sloppiness that was in line with the lo-fi, defiantly unprofessional ethos of that era’s indie rock. It’s a very hot record, whereas The Moon & Antarctica is decidedly chillier, like the other “ambitious” indie and alternative touchstones of the time. Just as their contemporaries were backing away from heavy riffs and boisterous rhythm sections, Modest Mouse made no effort to hide that they were now playing in the majors. The Moon & Antarctica was made with a big-label budget, and it sounds like it. The strummy sunniness of a track like “Gravity Rides Everything” belies the existential pondering of the lyrics. It also points to the bands that would become Modest Mouse’s new contemporaries by the time “Float On” broke big, pop groups like The Shins and Death Cab For Cutie who had little in common with the scrappier bands that Modest Mouse originally came up with in the ’90s.
The darkness on The Moon & Antarctica is reserved for the words, which are very dark indeed. Religious imagery had long been part of Brock’s songs, which is unsurprising given the rich well of material from his fundamentalist childhood. But these themes really come to the forefront on The Moon & Antarctica, which unfolds as a series of parables in which the protagonist is caught in a spiritual battle between heaven (the moon) and hell (Antarctica) that in the end will not be won by the good guys. (Not to belabor the Kid A comparisons, but The Moon & Antarctica might be an even more pessimistic “dystopia” record.)
Recorded in Chicago over the course of five months in 1999, from mid-summer to late fall, The Moon & Antarctica has a similar seasonal arc, starting out relatively bright before turning dimmer and colder. The most famous anecdote from the making of The Moon & Antarctica is about how Brock broke his jaw one night while out drinking, when he was jumped by some neighborhood mooks. His jaw had to be wired shut for weeks, which obviously made it impossible to sing. (Later, before an appearance at Coachella, he supposedly removed the wires himself with pliers and a bottle of whiskey for anesthesia.) Brock also had a shattered reputation in light of a rape accusation in 1999; while he was never arrested or charged, the allegation became a permanent part of Modest Mouse’s media profiles forever after.
While Brock often comes off as sarcastic and even goofy in his interviews, his lyrics on The Moon & Antarctica are reflective self-interrogations that frequently resolve as self-lacerations. The lilting opening track, “3rd Planet,” introduces a recurring motif on the record: “Everything that keeps me together is falling apart,” he spits. “I’ve got this thing that I consider my only art of fucking people over.” Later, on the searing “Dark Center Of The Universe,” he once again sings about how “I’m real damn sure that anyone can equally easily fuck you over.”
On that track, Modest Mouse sounds most like their old selves, which makes it an exception on The Moon & Antarctica. The funky disco rhythms of “Tiny Cities Made Of Ashes” and the wildly off-kilter post-rock psych of “A Different City” are more where this album is at sonically. But the vibrance of the music frequently belies what is one of the bleakest albums to be released be a major-label band in the past two decades. How we treat each other, and the toll those transgressions take on our own souls, weighs heavily on this record.
I tend to remember the first five or six songs most vividly whenever I think about The Moon & Antarctica. So I was surprised upon revisiting the album recently by how affected I was by the back half of the album, starting with the centerpiece nine-minute epic, “The Stars Are Projectors,” in which Brock asks pointedly, “Was there a need for creation?” Like most everyone else, I’ve been in a dark frame of mind lately concerning the state of humanity, and perhaps more receptive than usual to songs that question whether we truly deserve to exist at all. But The Moon & Antarctica takes that despair one step further by arguing forcefully, and persuasively, that we most definitely do not.
The other night I watched footage of police beating protestors in some American city while listening to the most disturbing track from The Moon & Antarctica, “Wild Packs Of Family Dogs.” It opens like another dispatch from Gummo America, only the landscape has moved beyond trailer parks to full-blown apocalypse. “My mother’s cryin’ blood dust now / My dad he quit his job today, well I guess he was fired but that’s OK / And I’m sittin’ outside my mudlake, waiting for the pack to take me away.” A few songs later, “I Came As A Rat” came on, and it was as if Mephistopheles himself was seated next to me as I recoiled in horror from his televised handiwork:
I came as ice, I came as a whore
I came as advice that came too short
I came as gold, I came as crap
I came clean and I came as a Rat
It takes a long time, but God dies too
But not before he’ll stick it to you
The Moon & Antarctica ends with “What People Are Made Of,” one of the most anti-human songs I’ve ever heard. Brock again has assumed his devil persona, and decides that people and their hollowed-out souls aren’t worth the effort. “The one thing you taught me ‘bout human beings was this / They ain’t made of nothin’ but water and shit.” It’s a brutal song set to the album’s most brutal music. In my most despairing moments lately, it has rung truer than I would like. But even if it is true, it ultimately means that we’re all the same, and can only be redeemed by each other.
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(@Winter) 
