OF MONTREAL: Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? (Polyvinyl)
ED KING REPORTS: I’m going to be a bigger man and put aside my distaste for album titles like Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer — Let’s talk about the music. Every time I find myself looking back with more fondness than I’d ever thought I could muster on the last days of disco, the final hits by ELO, and the early days of synth-pop,
something like this new Of Montreal album hits my radar. The album opens with the bracing vocals, phased guitar, and index-finger synth lines of “Suffer for Fashion,” which hits me like a Flock of Seagulls. The album is not lacking in diversity and craft, occasionally reawakening that kinder, gentler me, particularly during the George McCrea‘s (SEE BELOW) “Rock Your Baby”-influenced intro to “A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinge.” Inevitably the tight-ass, slick yapping of a song like “The Past Is a Grotesque Animal” takes over, and I’m feeling as nauseous as I used to feel whenever I was scouring the bins for rare PiL imports at Chicago’s Wax Trax Records, circa 1982. They were always playing this sort of futuristic twit-pop over their loudspeakers. I saw the future as I tried to wring out the last drops of my present. Now, this is the price we pay for digging those Thin White Duke albums against our better impulses; following Howard Devoto from Buzzcocks to Magazine, Barry Andrews from XTC to Shriekback; and ultimately, finding value in album cuts by Thomas Dolby, Talk Talk, Martha and the Muffins. Clever pop without the embarrassing sweat stains. An airtight Jeff Lynne in every dorm room.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ed King likes a lot of things, but mostly he likes to be left alone. Ed has kicked around the outer orbits of the periphery of local scene for some time. He was there when Tuxedomoon played Revival. Ed likes all things great and some things good. Anymore, what falls short of those simple criteria gets harder to bear. He appreciates you respecting his privacy at time like this.