Of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping (2008)

I always had a soft spot for Of Montreal and their particularly homo-erotic brand of whacky pop music. Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer was one of my favourite records of 2007 and I love the shit out of The Sunlandic Twins. No homo. Now, I recently saw a TV interview with OM head-fairy Kevin Barnes where he listed his favourite bands of the moment: Animal Collective, Deerhoof, Ariel Pink and Gang Gang Dance. He went to explain that he appreciated the way these bands tried to experiment and push music forward. Keeping that in mind, you could say Skeletal Lamping is Barnes’ attempt at being an experimental douchebag and “push music forward” in new, unexpected directions. The main issue at hand here is that the album is an absolute clusterfuck.

Straight-up pop songs following the usual verse/chorus/verse structure are a rarity on this album. Most tracks here have multiple segments and incessant rhythm changes. Opening track “Nonpareil of Favor” sums up Of Montreal’s new song-writing approach (aka. Being total dicks) quite well: it starts off as a bouncy little pop number with catchy synths, cools off for the mid-section and then kicks right into No Age-esque noise rock trashing. And that’s actually one of the less-offensive attempts at experimentation on the album. Spread throughout the rest of the album amidst the billion structure shifts: camp-tastic falsettos, direction-less blips and bloops, various psychedelic noise wankery, silly CRUNK BEATS and some of the most retarded lyrics you will ever come across. “We can do it softcore if you want, but you should know I take it both ways!” actually pops up as a chorus at some point. Also quote-worthy: “I’m so tired of sucking the dick of this cruel cruel city!” in falsetto-mode. LOL, you are a WILD DUDE, Kevin Barnez.

The best songs of the album are those that keep things simple. “An Eluardian Distance” definitely kicks my ass with its awesome trumpet riff and badass guitar solos, “Gallery Piece” offers perfectly-fine Of Montreal disco pop action with its dancey drums and itchy guitar, while closer “Id Engager” proves to be the best track by being the less left-field: crazy party vibe throughout, melodic harmonies, relatively-sane lyrics and a great chorus. The sad thing is that those few good songs don’t hold a candle to the better songs from OM’s back catalogue.

In attempting to create a cohesive (?) concept album where every ridiculously multi-segmented track (sort of) flows into the next, Of Montreal ended up with a completely disjointed mess of an album. The constant “song within a song” bullshit feels more like “tacking a bunch of under-developed song ideas together” than proper experimenting. Also, it makes the album damn near impossible to digest because there’s so much shit going on at all times. Most of the OM signatures (funky basslines, Beach Boys-esque harmonies, dancey synths and what not) can be found throughout the song segments, but the lack of structure seems to ruin any potential melody and renders most of Skeletal Lamping instantly-forgettable. Hopefully Barnes and crew get their shit together for the next album and don’t turn into a complete joke band. Fuck.

6/10