Man, Of Montreal have been ridiculously busy the past few years. If you don’t know Of Montreal, and you’re a fan of indie pop, man do I ever feel sorry for you. These guys have a gigantic selection of indie pop classics like “Cherry Peel” and “The Gay Parade”, which are filled to the brim with love songs so sweet and adorable you can’t help but stand back and say “AWWWWWW”. As far as their 2000’s stuff goes, it’s a little more hit and miss to say the very least. Of Montreal started trying tons and tons of new sounds,making for some of their biggest albums yet. Whether it be the disco infused electro-pop of “Hissing Fauna Are You The Destroyer?”, or the alternative country flavored and criminally underrated “Lousy With Sylvianbriar”, Of Montreal were popping out albums left and right. However, this also lead to some of the bands most bizarre albums. More times than not, the band was mixing way too many sounds producing these bizarre psychedelic pop messes. Then we had “Aureate Gloom”, which was released last year. While I loved lead singer Kevin Barnes’ attitude, instrumentally that album had me scratching my head. And now here we are only a year and a half later with new Of Montreal material, “Innocence Reaches”.
Now I heard beforehand that Of Montreal on this album were going for a more electronic sound. That sounded just fine to me, they’ve done it in the past and occasionally it’s turned out great. However, hearing just how freakin much electronic influence has on the music here is certainly disheartening on the first track, “Lets Relate”. If you were to listen to an Of Montreal track in the late 90’s and then listen to this, you would be absolutely horrified. “Lets Relate” more or less is a radio pop song. Now to be perfectly fair, Kevin Barnes doesn’t sound too out of place amongst the pulsating synth and booming bass. This is honestly just 100% not for me, at all. Yes, the beat makes you move. But when you sit here and think of just how much earlier Of Montreal material was truly groundbreaking, to hear this is cringeworthy. Not to mention, the production here is absolutely suffocating, Kevin Barnes really doesn’t need all this crap. Sure there are catchy moments here and there, but man oh man is this ever not for me. Let’s move on before I scream. Up next we have “It’s Different For Girls”. And whats that? Right off the bat we have an actual guitar? Shocking. It really doesn’t stick around too long though, and while it is around it’s kinda just taking up space with synths, it’s a shame too. As far as the vocals go, Kevin Barnes here just sounds uninspired. As messy as their last album “Aureate Gloom” was, Barnes on that sounded completely unhinged. THAT made it interesting at least, Barnes here sounds actually very bored. While were on the subject of Barnes’s performance, lyrically he’s just as sharp as a tack. Barnes has always been a strong, memorable frontman, mostly because of his lyrics and delivery. The delivery here may be mild, but his lyrics are clever and witty as ever. But this electronic sound at the root of everything, seriously it’s baffling to me. It’s not like they’ve done more electronic stuff before and succeeded with it. So what the hell was wrong with THAT sound? “It’s Different For Girls” is a track that I want to like. If Barnes livened up a bit It would be solid, but it’s just ok. And it’s a whole lot better than this album’s intro, thats for damn sure. “My Fair Lady” take a play out of the “Hissing Fauna Are You The Destroyer” playbook and starts off with some heavy bass. But the lyrics here are just freakin odd, and I can’t get into Barnes’s performance if my life depended on it. Like I get that he’s trying to do the whole deadpan delivery kind’ve shtick. But he pulls it off horribly and just sounds actually bored with what he’s talking about. And it’s a real shame, because instrumentally this one has some really solid moments. Those flutes that come in compliment Barnes perfectly, and when Barnes picks things up for the chorus it actually works very nicely. Everything on this album is just so all over the place, including the album cover, that thing is ugly as all hell. But seriously, I think the most frustrating thing about this album is though, are the brief moments of sheer brilliance. Take for example “Gratuitous Abysses”, which comes out of freakin’ nowhere. In the middle of all of these synth driven, heavy electronic based songs comes this track out of nowhere with these wild guitar intros and all sorts of other exciting elements. Barnes, while he’s still on the more reserved side, sounds absolutely at home on this instrumental, much more than other tracks here. I mean let’s face it, this is probably the closest thing were going to hear to an Of Montreal classic sound. There’s a ridiculously strong power pop feel, and Barnes’s lyrics continue to be stellar. If the rest of the album sounded like this, we would have another classic on our hands, easily.
Now I always try to give credit where it’s due. “Les Chants De Maidoror” has one of the most solid openings on this entire album, I honestly though Of Montreal were about to turn around on me and end up impressing me. However, that great energetic start dies out very quickly and “Les Chants De Maidoror” turns into a funk jam. Now I’ve heard plenty of these from Of Montreal in my day, I know this can go one of two ways. And guess what, it ends up failing pretty badly. Everything exciting about the track just leaves, and literally everything else here is so unbelievably bland! When the guitars occasionally come back in, they spice things up really nice. However whenever they do, they disappear 15 seconds or so later. “Les Chants De Maidoror” as it goes on and on, goes absolutely nowhere. Not to mention in the last minute, Of Montreal get really obnoxious and give us a half assed sound collage that’s supposed to sound all edgy and psychedelic. What a mess. Speaking of messes, “A Sport and A Pastime” is up next. Seriously, this track right off the bat sounds like radio pop. Not that there’s anything wrong with radio pop, I just don’t want to hear Of Montreal singing it. Lyrically once again it’s really not that bad at all, but good lord this is Kevin Barnes’s most pathetic performance here yet. That dreamy hook sounds like something Purity Ring or Flume would come out with, which I love that sound, but does it really belong here of all places? I verses are near cringeworthy and everything here just gets me grumpy listening to it. Of Montreal on here so far have for the most part been taking small great portions of songs, and really letting us down with the rest of the track. “A Sport and A Pastime” is just bizarre. “Ambassador Bridge” is up next, and would ya believe it, I can seriously get into this intro, again! The bass here is super soulful, the synths are fantastic, but then once again Barnes’s performance is just plain not doing it for me at all. I mean seriously, I’ve heard him on some strange tracks before in my life, but this takes the cake. Once again, I really REALLY want to love this track, but there’s too many little things about it that I seriously can do without. There are some real moments of sheer brilliance though damnit, there really are. Take for example “Def Pacts”, which is easily the most psychedelic thing your going to hear here. However, this track at the very least has plenty of really interesting things going on, which is so much more than I can say for other tracks here. Lyrically it’s intriguing, and when everything slows down for that chorus things become absolutely gorgeous. More or less it’s a lot of psychedelic instrumentals with Kevin Barnes doing an odd monologue over everything, but hey it really works for them here, and “Def Pacts” is easily one of the more interesting tracks here.
The final third of the album starts off with…..what’s this? Another solid song? Yes, it’s “Chaos Arpeggiating”. It’s sort of goofy and awkward, but it has such a charm to it that I can’t help but love it. And while at first I rolled my eyes at another Kevin Barnes deadpan performance, honestly this one works really well. The more psychedelic feel actually comes off fantastic here. Lyrically this is some of the album’s most interesting lyrics, and Barnes picks things up a bit as we go on and actually sounds alive and kicking. While the blend of indie pop and electronic music and God knows what else has been a mess so far, here it comes off very smooth and well thought out. Also, those background vocals do absolutely wonders. “Chaos Arpeggiating” really takes everything I love about Of Montreal and puts it in one place, I just wonder why the hell they only did this on this track. “Nursing Slopes” is up next, because Kevin Barnes clearly doesn’t want to use any easy to remember song titles on this entire record. Of Montreal on this one go back to a more electronic sound, but for the most part this one is smooth. It’s absolutely more classy than earlier applications of electronic music. I would even go as far as saying this sounds like something off of “Hissing Fauna…”, almost at least. If “Nursing Slopes” just picked it up a little, this could be a great track, but it’s still not completely unbearable. There’s even some weird fantasy sounding stuff on this one, but its still solid. And just when I thought I’ve completely gotten through all of the absolute bullshit on this album, in strolls “Trashed Exes”. I really don’t even want to think about this track too long, so I’m going to make this super quick. First, the production. This track is beyond over produced. Like, take the most over produced crappy pop song you’ve ever heard, than add even more layers of glossy production on top of that. All of that STILL wouldn’t add to how shiny and awful “Trashed Exes” sounds. As far as the instrumentals go, those synths are easily the ugliest they’ve been on this entire album, which is saying something. And then we get to the worst part, the lyrics. Lyrically, Kevin Barnes sounds just as fantastic, and it was wasted on this awful instrumental, quite frankly I’m embarrassed for him. “Trashed Exes” is so bad that it literally made me want to go back and re-evaluate everything good that I’ve said about this album, but don’t worry I’m not gonna take it back. Then we have the album’s finale, “Chap Pilot”. Listening to that intro the first time, I really didn’t know what to expect. It’s odd as all hell to be honest, but when things pick up it’s an alright track, but sloppy from time to time. I really feel like I’m beating a dead horse this time, but the real star here is Kevin Barnes once again, who lyrically is just so gifted. There are a few other cool elements throughout this one, but at the end of the day it’s just ok, like 90% of the entire album.
Rating: 6.7/10
Give A Listen To: "Chaos Arpeggiating", "Def Pacts", "Gratuitous Abysses", umm, "Nursing Slopes"? I guess?
Overall Thoughts: Man this thing is just overproduced as all hell, and if you're an old school Of Montreal fan I feel really bad for you if you're listening to this with me. Kevin Barnes confirms with us that he really is one of the most dynamic, entertaining frontmen in Indie Pop. But at the end of the day, he's really one of the only things to latch on to on this album. This album was messy as all hell, but the most consistent element to this entire album was Barnes's lyrical performance. There are so many other brief, solid moments, and a few really standout tracks. But the rest of this was a strange, jumbled mess.
No comments:
Post a Comment