Album Review: Of Montreal - Skeletal Lamping
It was the sales pitch of the year: for Of Montreal’s next album, Skeletal Lamping, Kevin Barnes would be eschewing traditional songcraft, instead of utilizing dozens of short, interlocked musical pieces. It sounded bold, audacious, and most of all, the logical next step for a band as scatterbrained as Of Montreal. When the track listing was announced this summer, I was disappointed to see that it included fifteen standard-length tracks; our hopes of a most innovative record had seemingly been dashed. But from the very first listen, it is clear that this is no ordinary record after all.
As it turns out, Barnes wasn’t kidding with his insane scheme after all. The track listing may read fifteen songs, but many “songs” are loosely-connected fragments; in other words, some are meticulously sequenced, while others are apparently thrown together at random. This leads to the first problem of the record. On average, an Of Montreal record breaks down to being 50% brilliant, 30% pretty good, and 20% average to awful. On previous records (most notably The Sunlandic Twins) it became easy to discern the duds from the keepers, making it easy to skip to the highlights. Skeletal Lamping breaks down the same way, only the 50/30/20 ratio often takes place within a single song. The first minute of album opener “Nonpareil of Favor” centers on a catchy piano part, only to descend into a brief booty-call interlude, before finally plunging into four minutes of white noise. In such chaos, when a shade of a traditional chorus does come through, it becomes a highlight almost by default: “For Our Elegant Caste” and “Triphallus”, to Punctuate!” are among the few songs that stick to a relatively linear format. Basically, if you’re going to try to appreciate the album, you need to swallow it in a single dose, which can be exhausting and overwhelming, considering you are taxed with a barrage of images and sound from start to finish.
The album focuses around Georgie Fruit, Kevin Barnes’ glam-rock “black shemale” alter ego who was unleashed during the second half of last year’s Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? As a result, the album is full of sexually explicit imagery, by turns amusing and stomach-churning (to wit: Barnes wants to make you ejaculate all day). Pansexual romps abound, ranging from the mythological (such as the figures on the front cover) to the teenaged (”He f***ed your sister in an elevator junior year”).
With Georgie Fruit running rampant, Skeletal Lamping raises a very important question: has Kevin Barnes finally gone off the deep end altogether? A key clue comes in “Touched Something’s Hollow”, which possibly has him removing the Fruit mask to ask that very question of himself: “Why am I so damaged/Why am I so troubled/I don’t know how long I can hold on if it’s going to be like this forever.” An intriguing thought from the artist himself (then again, it could very well simply be Georgie in a brief moment of self-reflection): imagine if your mind worked like this album. I would imagine this to be a fairly accurate representation of attention-deficit disorder.
One of the great cliches in music criticism is the term, “repeated listening.” Over time, parts of Skeletal Lamping congeal together to form unlikely but effective transitions and thematic threads, while other portions remain elusive to the point of making me want to tear my hair out. There may yet be brilliance hidden at the core of the record, but the whole damn thing reeks of missed opportunity. Yes, if Barnes had taken the best 50% of the segments and turned each into its own, straightforward, Satanic Panic-style pop song, Skeletal Lamping would probably be a much better album. The band may have succeeded in abandoning traditional song assemblage, but in the process, they’ve left a gaping hole at the center. We should have been careful what we wished for.
Rating: 
Check Out:
“Id Engager”
Skeletal Lamping will be available October 21st on Polyvinyl Records…
all of my thoughts are from a foreign host, now i feel just like a ghost
Album of the year, no questions asked. It does take a few listens to really appreciate the genius at work here, and after that take some lsd and put skeletal lamping on.
It’s really hard to watch this album swallow so many mediocre reviews while run-of-the-mill copy-and-paste more-of-the-same kool-aid indie pop and rock get praise based on tiny incremental creativity fluctuations, evidently because it’s easy to judge something that sways in an observable way from an established template.
This review, along with the truckload of Skeletal reviews that follow the same structure, would be much better if it discussed its confidence in being able to pin this album against its method of critique. Assigning it 3 stars, pointing to the “choppiness,” and daring to claim that “expanding the segments into songs” would make better music is a cop-out. And I don’t buy any of it.
This album really truly needs a chance to sink in and a few good listens. The first time I listed to it, I agreed with the author of this review…I liked the couple songs that were in the regular format, and was ready to eschew the ones that weren’t. Overall, I felt that it wasn’t as good.
However, I listened to it again, and found myself liking parts the second time through that I didn’t like the first time. These were some of the so called “erratic” and “thrown together” parts that people are talking about. When I listened to it a third time, I found myself liking even MORE than before.
I guarantee that the more you listen to this album the more you’ll like about it. People just aren’t used to the lack of exact songs. It may not seem worth it to have to listen to the album four or five times before you truly understand the genius of it, but if you like of Montreal than its more than worth it.
Album of the year. That’s my mind. But anyone that can have throw backs to the Stones, Tom Petty, Phil Spector. And shout out to Patrick Wolf and early 90’s techno has sold me.
Having had a few weeks to let this record sink in with repeated listenings, I have to reluctantly agree with the reviewer. Other than “Triphallus” and “Eluardian”, it’s a mess of intentionally disorienting cut-ups masquerading as something profound. Simply put, there’s no “there” there. It’s exactly what is appears to be - about two solid tracks, fluffed up with half-finished ideas that probably wouldn’t stand up on their own, and certainly don’t as parts of an overall incoherence. This record isn’t about alter ego, it’s about OVER ego, and in that sense this record would benefit from someone who is capable of reining in Barnes’ self-indulgent excesses. With this album, of Montreal has jumped the fruit.
The review here seems a little premature… you’re writing about it dismissively when you fully admit you’ve not given it a chance to sink in?
This album isn’t a collection of singles that are supposed to be listened to separately, it’s a collection of interlocking bits arranged so that they compliment and play off of each other… it’s only an album, and you can’t break it up without missing the point.
How brilliant is it that you get an abrasive wall of noise about three minutes into what is otherwise a very disco-pop album? Or that you get danceable tunes which become undanceable because they are interrupted by other, different danceable tunes? For every blatant come-on featured on this album, there’s at least one moment where the walls come crashing down revealing the wounded wretch inside, and still manage to demonstrate warmth and compassion as opposed to judgment or disgust.
If you’re looking for just music, this isn’t it, even though it is often musically brilliant… it’s more like high art, and it’s as challenging and ultimately rewarding as all good works of art should be.
The review here seems a little premature… you’re writing about it dismissively when you fully admit you’ve not given it a chance to sink in?
This album isn’t a collection of singles that are supposed to be listened to separately, it’s a collection of interlocking bits arranged so that they compliment and play off of each other… it’s only an album, and you can’t break it up without missing the point.
How brilliant is it that you get an abrasive wall of noise about three minutes into what is otherwise a very disco-pop album? Or that you get danceable tunes which become undanceable because they are interrupted by other, different danceable tunes? For every blatant come-on featured on this album, there’s at least one moment where the walls come crashing down revealing the wounded wretch inside, and still manage to demonstrate warmth and compassion as opposed to judgment or disgust.
If you’re looking for just music, this isn’t it, even though it is often musically brilliant… it’s more like high art, and it’s as challenging and ultimately rewarding as all good works of art should be.
oh come on burger
we don’t need you to review the review
anyways
its more of an art piece rather than something i would like to listen to. so whether or not I can stand listening to it, I can appreciate it…somehow
And me. ;^)
This album requires a closer listening than what this website has offered up. Kevin Barnes is literally getting too smart for his own good.
Songs one may initially dislike on Skeletal Lamping are the lingering noisemaker “Plastis Wafers,” the Faint-esque “Death Is Not A Parallel Move,” and/or the angsty “Beware Our Nubile Miscreants.” Barnes’ mix-board button-mashing takes on a cruel genius logic that is automatically inaccessible, and it is immediately evident that he has locked himself inside a wall of noise (as exemplified by the mammoth opener “Nonpareil of Favor”) called Georgie Fruit.
However, these bizarre songs are still as intricately crafted as any of Of Montreal’s finest. Gone are the obvious filler tracks of “Sunlandic Twins,” as well as the steps backwards of “Satanic Panic.” After letting this new record play through a handful of times, not a single track has the feel of a last-second add-on nor of a hesitance toward progress. All of it is relevant to Georgie Fruit’s upbeat despondence, and each stop-start moment is another opportunity to see the sights, or to let them simply blur together. At its worst, the aural hodge-podge is just an as-of-yet-unfamiliar brand of brilliant.
Masterwork like “Wicked Wisdom,” “An Eluardian Instance,” and “Mingusings” maintain Of Montreal’s now-signature pop-punch, while squeezing into a tight new pair of mesh leggings that will likely take a few nights on the town to get used to. Of Montreal fans craving a new favorite album have been handed the difficult opportunity of admitting that perhaps “Hissing Fauna” has already been outdone. Personally, I’m more of a “Sunlandic” fan, or, that is, I was.
Read between the lines in the review on this page. Ambivalent statements abound, like calling the album “exhausting or overwhelming”; I wouldn’t exactly call “In The Aeroplane Over The Sea” or “OK Computer” easy listening. Readers, please grow tired of these shallow reviews with the rest of us. The only critics you should trust are your friends and yourself.
where did you guys get the album?
This album is definitely a grower. unlike many albums that get old after a few spins, this one only gets better and better. don’t listen to the reviewer… he clearly didn’t listen enough.
I’ve been listening to this album a lot, and I’m a huge fan. …but I have to admit, I pretty much listen to half of the tracks, and find myself skipping out of a few of them early because I don’t get the same joy out of the remainder of the track. In keeping with the sexual nature of the album, I feel like I can compare it to getting my rocks off, but rather than stay and cuddling, I get my ass up to make a sandwich and find something to watch on tv. (BTW, never would I have thought I’d jam out quite as much as I have to a song about ‘doing it softcore’ and ‘taking it both ways’.)
Long story short, the album is IMO as good as any previous effort, but the proportion of great songs on any given of Montreal album got condensed into a handful of completely fucking brilliant songs, leaving the rest to seem mediocre in comparison.
This record is a true grower. I’ve been listening to it daily and can’t get enough of it. While I totally appreciate you feelings on the record, I bet your they change at a later date as there is alot to absorb…I can’t wait to see the stage show…
Maybe it’s because I have ADD, but I enjoy this album a good deal. I am very surprised that out of all the E6 bands, they are the ones to survive and stay meaningful.
Fuck! I hope you’re just being too hard on the album, but I was already having the exact same misgivings myself, that he was taking these novelty tactics (alter ego, anarchic song structuring) too far. Perhaps with enough “repeat listenings” I’ll convince myself it’s at least half as brilliant as “Hissing Fauna”
Apr 22nd, 2009 at 2:45 pm
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Dec 17th, 2008 at 9:36 am
[...] Barnes has already begun work on the recently released Skeletal Lamping, “I’m slowly putting together some new stuff for the next record, like whenever I have a free [...]
Oct 21st, 2008 at 1:15 pm
[...] now out of the way, Of Montreal has officially unveiled its much-anticipated new studio album, Skeletal Lamping, in all its perpetual state of human conscious representing, sticker glory. To celebrate the [...]