Hissing Fauna Are You the Destroyer?: of Montreal (2007)

I love it when one of my favorite bands is at the top of their game. Of Montreal has been a fun band to be a fan of over the years. Their sound has changed continually and each period has produced its share of incredible songs and several masterful albums. But with this album, they’ve really outdone themselves. For my money, there are few albums are as thrilling and harrowing to listen to as this masterpiece. If anyone ever doubted it before, I think this album confirms that Kevin Barnes is a genius.

Of Montreal has always had catchy songs and wildly imaginative arrangements. And Barnes’ harmonic vocabulary is matched only by Brian Wilson’s. (If you don’t believe me, check out their chords here and see for yourself.) But with Hissing Fauna, Barnes has taken his skills to a new level. He now has complete mastery over melody, harmony, rhythm, and sound effects and is able to bend these core musical elements at will, changing the rules of music theory along the way. But more importantly, he’s using his powers to dramatize and emphasize the harrowing emotional tale that unfolds in this record. And that’s what sets this album apart from his previous efforts. As fun and insanely creative as The Gay Parade is, it lacks the emotional depth of Hissing Fauna.

I love the Kinks-like story telling of his earlier albums, but Hissing Fauna is so much more fascinating and daring because it’s about him. He’s baring his soul, both lyrically and musically. And that’s what makes this such a harrowing and thrilling listen. I don’t know the last time I heard an album that took so many risks. I’ve heard this album several dozens of times and there are moments on here that still make me almost gasp. I find myself actively worrying that he’s about to embark on something that’s not going to pay off.

Sometimes this is lyrically (and vocally), as with the album’s centerpiece, “The Past is a Grotesque Animal.” In many ways, this song sums up the whole album. The whole song is filled with seemingly clunky lines that shouldn’t scan well–some of which he repeats but sings in different ways–but somehow he makes them work, although as I said before, it’s not clear they’re going to work until he finishes singing them. Like this line, for instance:

but teach me something wonderful
crown my head crowd my head with your lilting effects
project your fears on to me I need to view them
see there’s nothing to them
I promise you there’s nothing to them

It’s hard to imagine being able to sing those lines in any kind of way that’s going to make sense, rhythmically or melodically. And he almost doesn’t pull it off. Until he does.

Even the song structure is daring. It’s just four chords that never change over the course of 12 minutes. And yet it never gets boring. On the contrary, it gets more intense and interesting as the song progresses.

Other times these risks are musical. The “ooohs” in the same song; when they first come in, they sound almost silly and yet they wind up adding to the song’s increasing paranoia. In the chorus of “Gronlandic Edit,” his melody twists and turns harmonically and rhythmically over the course of 46 seconds (that’s like twice as long as most “normal” choruses), punctuated by drawn out staccatoed words, and culminating in a high E that would certainly strain most people’s vocal chords. Or the chorus of “Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse”: It’s hard to believe that the words “Come on chemicals!” could make for a great refrain.

Frankly there are dozens of moments that, on paper, sound like bad ideas–the “Are you deplaning?” section of “Faberge Falls for Shuggie,” or the “Is that too much to ask?” section of “Cato as a Pun”–but time and again he somehow manages to pull them off.

My only complaint is that after intense experience that is “The Past is a Grotesque Animal,” you need a breather and yet you still have five songs to go. By the time you get to the last two songs on the album, it’s hard to stay focused and I’m not sure if they’re just weaker songs or if I’m just exhausted. But that’s a small complaint. After all, what other album is so intoxicating and startling, that it leaves you exhausted?

They’re about to release their 9th album, Skeletal Lamping, in a few weeks. I’m trying not to get my hopes up, but it’s hard.

This is a cool acoustic version of  “Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse.” What I find fascinating about this version is it sounds like a Bowie tune, but you’d never get that from the album version. (And I’m not saying that because they cover Bowie’s “Starman” in a similar video from the same gig.)