of Montreal "SKELETAL LAMPING"

NEW MATERIAL FROM OUR FAVORITE ECCENTRICS, OF MONTREAL

Of Montreal's wondrous and wily excursions into whimsy and weirdness a.k.a. the odyssey of Kevin Barnes

When I first heard Athens, GA pop anomaly Of Montreal (despite repeated claims that the group hails from our friendly neighbor to the north, the band's befuddling moniker is actually in reference to a woman from Montreal with whom Kevin Barnes had an ill-fated pen-pal romance with some time ago), I was not at all sure what to think. Here was a band that, if nothing else, sounded like no other current rock band on the mainstream radar. It combined the irresistible pop hooks and loopy harmonies of Fab Four-era Beatles with the daffy, ornately costumed madness of 60's vintage pop group- and even still, there was an sheen of electronic polish that gave the music a bittersweet, danceable twist- it was heartbreak music that you could boogie-oogie-oogie to. Over the years, they've moved on from the quirky, multi-instrumentalist heavy dream pop of their "Coquelicot Asleep In the Poppies/Gay Parade" phase while incorporating synth-heavy melodies and disco-lite musings on misery, heartbreak, sexual confusion and identity crises into their newer, more heavily-produced live albums and their notoriously lewd (and notoriously shoddy) live performances. All the while they've remained one of Indie music's most endlessly fascinating creations as they tirelessly elaborate on a dream world entirely of their own creation.

Their latest, "Skeletal Lamping", which will hit record stores on October 21st, is thankfully better than 2007's "Hissing Fauna, are you the destroyer?" which took its soulless diet-electro inanity far too seriously to the point of venturing into near incomprehensibility. The tunes still buzz and bounce with the demented glee of Barnes' animated band of pranksters and merrymakers, and as per usual, there is a palpable sense of melancholy and yearning on the most upbeat of tracks. On the whimsical, string-and-drum-looping opener "Nonpareil of Favor", Barnes whispers sultrily that he's been "thinking about you in my secret language" as the barrage of tuned-down riffage kicks in with a blissfully combustive burst of rowdy energy as Barnes croons about "the misinterpretations that define me and you". Congo and bass line loopiness dominate the airy sexual playground of "For our elegant castle" ("I can do it softcore if you want/but you should know I like it both ways") while the cheekiness of "Beware our nubile miscreants" brings to mind the best part of the band's masterpiece, "Satanic Panic in the Attic". Overall, it's a suitably eccentric, hook-laden marriage of whimsy and woe and while it's certainly not one of the more substantial indie releases of the year, it adds an interestingly freaky element to the catalogue of one of rock music's most picaresque sonic paradoxes.
-By Nicholas Laskin