of Montreal – Paralytic Stalks
Polyvinyl
“I don’t believe in Gita, I don’t believe in yoga / I don’t believe in kings, I don’t believe in Elvis / I don’t believe in Zimmerman, I don’t believe in Beatles / I just believe in me.” So said John Lennon on 1970 album track ‘God’, startling fans of thoughtful, well-written pop music everywhere.
When Kevin Barnes told us eleventh LP Paralytic Stalks wore an intimacy redolent of Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band and Sufjan’s Age of Adz, he was right. If you like wordy confessionals, collisions of neo-gospel, wailing breakbeats and prog-pop — plus some seriously winding song structures that make Mario Kart’s Bowser’s Castle racecourse look tame by comparison — then this is the of Montreal record for you. It’s audacious, indulgent, and sounds frequently brilliant. Though the record’s disjointed nature is for a few listens insufferable, further listening suggests it might just be its crowning glory. “I’m desperate for something, but there’s no human word for it / I should be happy, but what I feel is corrupted, broken, impotent, and insane”, gasps highlight ‘Ye, Renew The Plaintiff’, before ‘Wintered Debts’’ orchestral flourishes discombobulate, like an assortment of drunk piano keys being shaken up in a jar and smashed against the wall.
It’s no big worry that a few creative eccentricities niggle — ‘Exorcism Breeding Knife’, a dilapidated shack of buzzing noise, is frankly unlistenable — for on the whole this is hard evidence that while, of Montreal no longer meet indie pop’s typical pass-rate for coherency, restraint or focus, Kevin’s psychotic, erudite flair is no less potent here than it is on their magnum opus, Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?. Jazz Monroe
