CD Reviews

Of Montreal

Hissing Fauna, Are you the Destroyer? | Polyvinyl

By MIKAEL WOOD | January 16, 2007

3.0 Stars

SEXYBACK: Of Montreal have survived Elephant 6 — and prospered.

Now that the Apples in Stereo are reunited and have a new album coming out next month, Of Montreal can no longer lay claim to the distinction of being the only Elephant 6 band of note to outlive the once-sprawling psych-pop collective’s sad demise. But thanks to mastermind Kevin Barnes’s evident insatiable hunger for new sounds, the Athens -based outfit can call itself the most unpredictable E6 band ever: Of Montreal records have included bits of everything from cardigan-core pop to T. Rex–style glam to endless-groove Afrobeat, and not at all in a way that makes Barnes seem like a cool-hunting hipster desperate for blog love. Hissing Fauna, the follow-up to 2005’s trippy The Sunlandic Twins, is for the most part an exercise in Prince-like electro-funk, full of squelchy keyboard fuzz and chicken-scratch guitar noise and absurdly complicated falsetto harmonies. You wouldn’t think this proudly eccentric manchild would muster much as a new recruit in the Department of SexyBack. But you’d be wrong.

Related: Odd men in, The society of the spectacle, Of Montreal | Skeletal Lamping, More

Topics: CD Reviews , Entertainment, Music, New Music Releases, More

| More

Most Popular

The Current Issue

Table of Contents

Cover Archive

Masthead | Authors | Contact us

Blogs

Where To Follow Me
Talking Politics | March 24, 2013 at 11:09 AM

Mo Takes His Turn
March 21, 2013 at 12:59 PM

[Q&A] KMFDM's Sascha Konietzko on art, Columbine and having balls
On The Download | March 18, 2013 at 3:22 PM

See this film series: The Belmont World Film Series @ Studio Cinema in Belmont
Outside The Frame | March 18, 2013 at 11:00 AM

See this film: This is Spinal Tap [with post-film talk by expert from Acoustical Society of America] @ the Coolidge
March 17, 2013 at 12:00 PM

ARTICLES BY MIKAEL WOOD

THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS | FURTHER | July 07, 2010
Astralwerks (2010)

DEVO | SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY | July 01, 2010
Given the theory of de-evolution these Ohio brainiacs began expounding more than 30 years ago, it makes a sad kind of sense that Devo's first album since 1990's Smooth Noodle Maps offers such a charmless, base-level version of the band's synth-addled new wave.

TAIO CRUZ | ROKSTARR | June 24, 2010
When Taio Cruz sings, "I can't live without you," in "Take Me Back," pop-song conventions tell us he's referring to a lover.

THE FUTUREHEADS | THE CHAOS | June 16, 2010
"I wish that I could stop the noise," sings Barry Hyde not long into The Chaos . It sure doesn't seem that way.

BETTYE LAVETTE | INTERPRETATIONS: THE BRITISH ROCK SONGBOOK | June 01, 2010
Bettye LaVette’s previous two albums had titles that required a little digging to unpack.