False Priest has been touted by frontman and songwriter Kevin Barnes as Of Montreal\u2019s funkiest release to date. He\u2019s right to a point. This record has a heavier low end than previous Of Montreal releases, and there\u2019s a much higher level of live drums then the band has used before. But on the whole, those differences are minor; and while this album does have a slightly wider sonic palate than their previous records, it\u2019s not like those were exactly lacking in anything that this album has. Their electronically-influenced pop style remains as distinctive as ever. Certainly no one will mistake the songs on here as anything other than Of Montreal.<\/p>\n
Of course, what it all comes down to isn\u2019t the sound but the songs, and unfortunately Barnes didn\u2019t quite bring his \u201cA\u201d game this time around. 2008\u2019s Skeletal Lamping<\/i> may have been schizophrenic and scattershot, but it was also bursting at the seams with great hooks which rescued many tracks that may otherwise have fallen flat. This album is far more reigned in, and while the hooks are still there, they\u2019re given out to us on a more rationed basis. In some regards, this approach is preferable. With its consistent sound and more normal arrangements, False Priest<\/i> is certainly Of Montreal\u2019s most accessible record since 2004\u2019s Satanic Panic In The Attic.<\/i><\/p>\n
But on the other hand, for the first time in a long while, there is some truly weak material here. Unless you\u2019re paying attention, the final three tracks may just completely pass you by. They do little but drag the album out longer than necessarily and there isn\u2019t anything particularly memorable about them. \u201cYou Do Mutilate?\u201d in particular rambles on and on for nearly seven boring minutes. The rest of the album never sinks that low, but it\u2019s still disconcerting to hear such mediocre material from Of Montreal when weak tracks used to be few and far between.<\/p>\n
Several of these tracks rock much harder than Of Montreal previously have been known for. Lead single \u201cCoquet Coquette\u201d thunders along on timpani rolls and chugging guitar. The spiraling guitars featured in the chorus of \u201cFamine Affair\u201d make for a very exiting moment as well. <\/p>\n
Of Montreal guested on Janelle Mon\u00e1e\u2019s<\/em> album earlier this year and she returns the favor by way of a duet on the chorus of \u201cEnemy Gene.\u201d I can practically hear Barnes grinning from ear to ear while singing with Mon\u00e1e,<\/em> and that joy is contagious. If any Of Montreal song ever deserved to be a hit, it\u2019s this one. That chorus really is fantastic. It\u2019s followed up a few tracks later by another semi-duet, this time with Solange Knowles (sister to Beyonce). However, their \u201cSex Karma\u201d doesn\u2019t reach the same ecstatic place as its predecessor, though it\u2019s certainly fun and danceable (despite the cringe-worthy hook lyric \u201cyou look like a playground to me player\u201d). It bothers me a little how similar it is to \u201cEnemy Gene,\u201d but nevertheless, it\u2019s also a major highlight. <\/p>\n Mon\u00e1e<\/em> also appears during the coda of \u201cOur Riotous Defects,\u201d but you\u2019d be forgiven for not noticing her since the main part of the song is one of the most eccentric tracks Barnes has ever attempted. He sings about he\u2019s in a relationship with a \u201ccrazy girl\u201d and proceeds to tell us (not sing us) about all the crazy things she\u2019s done. It\u2019s actually pretty funny, but it also seems like he\u2019s trying a little too hard to surprise his listeners. She threw his beta fish out the window? He bought a bowflex? Wait, what?<\/p>\n On Of Montreal\u2019s early albums, Kevin Barnes wrote about strange characters, and gradually he began writing about his own life until that became his primary inspiration. By the time Skeletal Lamping<\/i> rolled around he had switched back to writing about characters, however, this time he had become the character himself. But where is he now? The title False Priest<\/i> implies some sort of religious theme, and the album art seems to confirm it, yet, aside from a distorted rant in \u201cYou Do Mutilate?\u201d at the end of the record, Barnes rarely touches on the issue. Most of the tracks don\u2019t really seem to about anything in particular aside from the theme of weird relationship issues, which he had already mined so thoroughly in his past work. <\/p>\n It\u2019s much too soon to tell whether or not this will end up as a transitional album in Of Montreal\u2019s catalogue, or if they\u2019re just treading water. After a long string of big hitters False Priest<\/i> aims lower, but it does hit its mark, at least most of the time, anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":30473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8636],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-42137","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-of-montreal","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42137"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}