Of Montreal - "Hissing Fauna Are You The Destroyer?" CD Review


by Johnny Moon - Date: 2007-02-16 - Word Count: 1347 Share This!

This is a track by track review of the latest Of Montreal album "Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?" which was released this January 23, 2007. You can purchase it at your local CD store or you can just download it like a bad pirate from a music downloading service.

I've never been as into Of Montreal as I feel like I should be. I love psychedelic music. I love strange arrangements. I like their influences a lot. I love their Elephant 6 mates The Olivia Tremor Control and Neutral Milk Hotel. But something about Of Montreal has never quite fit for me. They have always seemed a bit too cutesy or something. While they definitely have the psychedelic thing going on with their wild arrangements they don't seem to have the organic and really far out feel of The Olivia Tremor Control. They also don't seem to have any sort of emotional impact in their music like Neutral Milk Hotel.

All of this being said, I still find myself getting their new album and being a curious listener. It's not that I don't like them. I'm just somehow disappointed by them. There's also something about lead singer/songwriter Kevin Barnes shrill voice that turns me off.

Now let's get on with this. This is pretty much a first listen to this album for me although I've heard the first track a few times before. This is a bit of a disclaimer because while I find first listens to be very interesting most good music takes multiple listens to really wrap the head around it.

#1 Suffer For Fashion - I find myself pretty annoyed by this track. There's a few cool lyrics like if "If we've got to burn out let's do it together let's all melt down together" but I find the production and overall sound too cute and too plastic sounding. The arrangement which seems to strive for surprises doesn't really seem very surprising to me at this point. I hate to say it but the thing about this track that really bothers me is Barnes' voice. I hate that because I know I hate when I hear people dismiss a great band that I love (like The Flaming Lips) because they can't get past the voice. It's like, hey this is real music it's not American Idol, it's all about the music! But sometimes I just can't get past the voice no matter how much I try. I just find his voice extremely whiny.

#2 Sink The Seine - This is a short one minute song that I actually find much more enjoyable than the first. It has a bit of a white album era Beatles feeling to it. His voice fits this song quite a bit more. See this is the thing, I dig these guys, it's just the overly poppy over the top stuff like "Suffer For Fashion" that I can't get into.

#3 Cato As A Pun - This song is very much linked to the one before. If you aren't paying attention to the tracks passing by you'd probably think they were part of the same song. There's some cool stuff going on in this one musically. The album is making a bit of a swing upward after the poor start for me.

#4 Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse - This song is all over the place stylistically. It turns into a bit of an upbeat almost 80s-ish song during some parts. I'm not sure what to make of this one but I think it's pretty cool although I don't usually go for the 80s retro thing.

#5 Gronlandic Edit - Starts off with a funky bass and drum. I like the piano rolls that echo around. This song has managed to surprise me a bit with it's feel which is pretty sweet. The vocal harmonies that come in are especially wild. The album is definitely starting to grow on me now.

#6 A Sentence Of Sorts In Kongsvinger - All of the tracks on this album seem to go from one to the next in a pretty interesting fashion. It feels very cohesive. This songs sounds very much like you've just entered some sort of video game. The vocals are very catchy on this one. His voice fits this song much better than the first track. This song manages to be upbeat and overly poppy while it still has a lot of personality. I'm not sure how it'll hold up on repeat listens but I'm digging it right now.

#7 The Past Is A Grotesque Animal - This track is 11:52 long. So I'm expecting either something incredibly epic or very atmospheric/ambient in nature. It's starting off pretty promisingly with some very spooky sounds and a nice pulsating bass. This song is totally kicking my ass. I'm loving it. Very interested to see where it heads. Great combination of spooky, creepy sounds with the fast beat and great vocals. There's a lot of feeling in this one. Which I don't usually feel when I listen to Of Montreal. That's it friends. I'm going to have to take a toke off the pipe.

#8 Bunny Ain't No Kind Of Rider - This is a very interesting sonic space being created, friends. Stuff going all around here. Yeah, this is my jam. Some very interesting/surprising changes. Nice use of the pulsating bass again on this one. It really pushes things forward.

#9 Faberge Falls For Shuggie - This one starts off a bit like a trip hop track. Great bass again. This time it's a funky bass line. Kevin Barnes seems to be doing a bit of a Prince impression here.

#10 Labyrinthinian Pomp - Another surprise. I'm not really sure who Kevin Barnes is impersonating here. This is a very strange track. I really like where it goes about 2:30 in. Very suddenly spacey. This works very well. I think overall there may be a bit too many sudden genre shifts and whatnot, it can start sounding a bit pasted together with too much of that.

#11 She's A Rejector - I'm 50 seconds into this song and it sounds like it's been about 4 or 5 different songs already. I guess it really depends on what mood you are in, but it's sort of hard for me to take it seriously when it's changing so quickly. It seems more showoff than any anything and that puts me off whether it's showoff guitar playing with no meaning or showoff production tricks with no meaning. I dig that they are trying to quickly take you to different places. You know it's very schizophrenic and I'm into that. Really. But it just has to work. And I'm not really finding it working very well on these last couple of tracks. There are good bits but then it's just a little too unfocused with all of the switching back and forth. You know, I think a good analogy is when a song starts to sound too much like a "Mega Mix" instead of a cohesive thought that's when you are going too far with it. I should point out that I love genre bending and moving between different styles. I hate it when an album is really "samey" (usually, there are exceptions.) but there are times when it just doesn't work too. It's hard to really be taken anywhere different if you are never sure where you are in the first place.

#12 We Were Born The Mutants Again Leofling - So far for me this album really peaked in the middle. I think this track takes a bit long to get started. Once it gets started it's pretty cool. I like the layered voices. Overall though it feels a bit too repetitive.Overall I feel I'm a bit dissapointed again. There's some really good tracks in the middle of the album and some really nice moments in most of the songs. But overall it just doesn't hold together for me. I will say that as of right now track #7 "The Past Is A Grotesque Animal" is my new favorite Of Montreal song though. I'm sure I'll listen to this album a few more times, possibly it'll grow on me!


Related Tags: of montreal, hissing fauna are you the destroyer, indie rock, cd review

Johnny is a contributer to the music site Music By Day which offers a daily snapshot into the history of music.

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