Of Montreal.... Come back!!

I haven't had much time to post in a while. My apologies. In making my return, I'll offer my two cents on the new Of Montreal album. This is actually just a copy of a review I'm writing for Squeezebox.


[Start review]

With Of Montreal’s 2007 release, Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?¸ kicking an unprecedented amount of ass, the band’s newest full-length, Skeletal Lamping, has been one of this year’s most anticipated albums in indie rock. But therein lies the problem. Still hot off the buzz from what many will likely call their tour de force, Of Montreal confronts the challenge faced by the select few who have made the mistake of birthing the perfect album: How the hell do you follow it up? It remains uncertain if any band has ever successfully tackled this challenge, and unfortunately Of Montreal makes no exception. This is not to say that Skeletal Lamping is necessarily a bad album, but as the successor to Hissing Fauna, it disappoints.

Above all, Skeletal Lamping suffers from a frustrating case of ADHD (not to mention schizophrenia), impulsively leaping from one short-lived melody to the next, shifting musical gears in such a spastic manner that it renders the songs--and in turn the album--feeling sloppy and incomplete. To its credit, despite being served in unfinished chunks, the catchy pop hooks are as fun as ever: the bright array of instruments, the pulsating drum machine, the groovy bass lines, the electronic punch of synthesizers, the vocal harmonies, howls, yips, and yells--all the super produced psychedelic pop sounds we’ve come to expect and love from Of Montreal are definitely still here. And in more comprehensible songs like “An Elurdian Instance,” a blissful toe-tapper fused with vibrant trumpets and a hodgepodge of other instruments, there’s justification for adding Skeletal Lamping to your collection of (pirated) music. That being said, there's a lot of weird shit in this album that isn't really that artistic, that experimental, or that necessary. Case in point: the two minutes of abrasive guitar distortion that kills the otherwise ballin’ opening track, “Nonpareil Of Favor.”

Oh, and speaking of unnecessary, here’s a nice tidbit: Lead singer Kevin Barnes is now delving even deeper into his alter ego as a "black shemale" by the name of Georgie Fruit, which, for those of you taking notes, he apparently morphed into during the 12 minute opus, "The Past Is A Grotesque Animal," halfway through the last album. In his return, Georgie goes fucking nuts. Skeletal Lamping becomes a channel for broadcasting his fictitious life story, and as a result, the album is slathered with sex. This absurd premise might be more permissible if not for songs like "For Our Elegant Caste," an obnoxious number in which Georgie repetitively and irritatingly proclaims that he "can do it softcore if you want…” (“but you should know [he takes] it both ways"). Charming. In the end, with lyrics like these (and sounds to match), the album gives an overarching feel that the music is merely mimicking this transvestite’s deranged and uncontrolled thoughts. I fully support employing themes or story lines as the impetus for an album, but when that ambition takes precedence over the quality of the music itself, the artistic motives become counterproductive.

Hissing Fauna succeeded as it did by harnessing the fresh edginess, intelligence, and experimentation from Of Montreal’s previous works and delivering it all in a manner that was surprisingly catchy and accessible. In Skeletal Lamping, without having any ostensible desire to maintain this balance, Of Montreal--or rather, Georgie Fruit--creates an album that comes off as an hour of self-serving noise. And while there are definitely some redeeming qualities scattered here and there, I can't grasp them long enough to be entirely convinced that I enjoy what I’m listening to.

[End review]

Cue the link (I actually like this track):

Of Montreal - "An Elurdian Instance"