In June of 2000, Modest Mouse put out their third studio album, The Moon & Antarctica, which took them somewhere they had never been before: borderline relevancy on a national scale. The album was lauded by critics all over, and stands out today as one of the best albums of the 2000s.

A play from beginning to end takes listeners all over the place, as no two songs on the album sound too similar. There’s something to be said about every track. Each one is special and great in its own unique way. They’re kind of like snowflakes if snow wasn’t terrible. “Songs like 3^rd Planet,” “A Different City,” and “Paper Thin Walls” are all filled with little scientific references and weird, borderline oxymoronic lyrics like, “the universe is shaped exactly like the Earth / If you go straight along enough, you’ll end up where you were,” or “everyone’s a voyeurist, they’re watching me watch them watch me right now.”

The Moon & Antarctica is often overlooked. The albums that preceded it, This is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About, and The Lonesome Crowded West had their own interesting sound, while the two studio albums of theirs that have been released since, Good News for People who Love Bad News and We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank embraced an almost jangly tune. The Moon & Antarctica, however, is stuck in between the two sounds as a thing of its own. It feels like it’s both their most normal album while also being their weirdest. I can’t say enough about it, but it’s hard to think about what to say. It’s a weird deal. Go listen to it.