It’s difficult to think of a band with a more consistently engaging output than Athens-bred Of Montreal.
For more than a decade, they have been able to explore and master genres from simple, sparse love songs to the verbose, experimental psychedelia (which has dominated the majority of their recent offerings). All of this is mostly due to the wonderfully complex mind of one of music’s most interesting frontmen, Kevin Barnes.
Ever since the reformative epic “The Past Is a Grotesque Animal” off of Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, Barnes has adopted the Bowie-esque alter-persona of Georgie Fruit, a transgendered funk musician.
For the past couple years, Of Montreal has been an almost entirely sexual being, lacing nearly every song with not-so-subtle innuendos. Somehow the band has managed to make the topic consistently unique and diverse without sounding silly or tired.
Yet their 10th LP, False Priest, exposes the band’s thematic limits. It follows many of the similar staples of earlier songs: obscure art references, slinking bass lines, infectious choruses.
The main discrepancy here is that Barnes simply overdoes it. His penchant for wordy lyricism detracts from his verses and other times just gets to the point of being purely goofy. He often abandons lyrical rhythm in favor of out-of-place, contrived wordplay.
Thankfully, the choruses are able to delightfully bounce around in your head and usually end up overshadowing some of the more awkward verses.
Janelle Monáe, an up-and-coming R&B favorite and a recent Of Montreal touring mate, guests on “Our Riotous Defects” and “Enemy Gene,” serving as a fantastic counterpart to Barnes’ crooning. Solange Knowles offers the same on “Sex Karma,” one of the album’s better tracks.
The other aspect of False Priest which disappoints is that the song structures are all sort of normal, an adjective which has rarely ever been applicable to Of Montreal.
Aside from a select few of their earliest songs, their albums have always contained songs which act as musical chameleons instead of merely static entities.
However, of Montreal as a whole are shape-shifters, which is why this album shouldn’t worry fans in the slightest. Although this is a certain misstep, they have an unwavering efficacy to change their broad styles whenever their originality is placed in jeopardy.
False Priest is only the last shell before Of Montreal’s newest form appears.
