Of Montreal - False Priest

I've never really loved an Of Montreal album. The closest I've gotten was with their debut Cherry Peel, and that was during their lo-fi-guitar-pop-with-pretty-melodies phase back in the 90s. Other than that, I love individual Of Montreal songs, like Disconnect the Dots, Sink the Seine, Gronlandic Edit, A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger, and even Id Engager from their previous album Skeletal Lamping, which was slightly disappointing. But never a whole album.

False Priest is different, however. There aren't any specific songs that I love on it, but not any that I strongly dislike either. In other words, nothing stands out for me on this very animated record, which isn't entirely a bad thing. The songs on False Priest are more consistent with each other, and seem to flow much more smoothly than on Hissing Fauna, or Skeletal Lamping. This makes it their most accessible pop album to date, and it's pretty hard for a band like Of Montreal to be considered 'accessible'.

The high points of this album are in the lyrics, which sound best when Kevin Barnes sings them. Most of the lyrics are about teenage romances, and random experiences. They're pretty funny though, like most Of Montreal lyrics. Here he sings about a girlfriend throwing his beta fish out the window, female erections, sexual innuendo related to playgrounds, and a bunch of other bizarrely hilarious topics.

It almost seems like Kevin Barnes was spending a little too much time on the lyrics rather than making some memorable melodies. But all negativity aside, I really enjoyed listening to False Priest, and I think it's an improvement from Skeletal Lamping. Give it a listen.

Funniest track: Our Riotous Defects



-Julian