Nothing has happened since the album's release to alter that view very dramatically, but in light of the 2000 election, September 11th, the 'war' on terror, and The Passion of The Christ, The Moon & Antarctica has only deepened in meaning and relevance. From all these conundrums he fashioned a bleak, angry philosophy about God, life, death, and his own and others' dwindling self-worth. Simultaneously far-out abstract and achingly personal, it was a complex, inquisitive record, yet for every question Brock asked, he discovered a confounding infinity of even more questions. More ambitious in sound, if not in theme, than any of its predecessors, The Moon & Antarctica revealed frontman Isaac Brock's emotional and existential doubts to be as desolate and tundraic as its two title geographies. Four years later, Epic Records has re-released the album in an 'expanded and remastered edition' that begs the question: Why? When Brent DiCrescenzo reviewed The Moon & Antarctica for Pitchfork in 2000, he awarded it a 9.8, nearly the highest rating possible and one that I second with only quibbling reservations. In some ways this review has a foregone conclusion.
