The opening few moments of Peace to All Freaks – the opener on Of Montreal’s 16th and latest studio album – recall the orchestral tranquillity of an aquarium tunnel… but such serenity barely last 10 seconds before Kevin Barnes’ trademark energy and enthusiasm muscle in on proceedings. Barnes is the progenitor of the band and UR FUN represents the first time in many years that he’s penned and recorded the release almost entirely on his tod.
In some ways, the difference in approach is barely noticeable. The synthy bounciness and bubblegum qualities which have characterised Barnes’ style for over two decades are here in full force, while the thematic content of the album, as it seems to be on all his productions, is romantic; in fact, the band’s name is believed to have been coined after Barnes endured a messy breakup with an ex “of Montreal”. But rather than deal in failed relationships this time round, Barnes focuses all of his energy on one that’s at the peak of its powers.
All the same, there’s an undercurrent of self-doubt and panic to the bliss, as is perhaps most notable in the catchiest track of the piece, You’ve Had Me Everywhere: “Listening to your heartbeat / Realising it’s my heartbeat too / Because if something were to happen to you / I would lose my mind and I’d never get it back”. The insecurity of Polyaneurism is further testament to this switchback, as is the concession that “You want me, nobody wants me / I want you, no – well, everybody wants you” on Gypsy That Remains (interestingly enough made with the input of current squeeze Christina Schneider from Locate S,1).
Of course, these kind of mixed messages and conflicting feelings are nothing new for Of Montreal. Indeed, the band’s best work (Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?) blended upbeat parcels of erratically but expertly orchestrated sound with existential dread and barely comprehensible lyrics to leave the listener sadistically addicted to the nonsensical nature of anguish in the same way that a breakup might. The ambiguity of the lyrical work on that album was undoubtedly one of its strongest elements, while a quick perusal of titles from the band’s discography reveals similar playful uncertainty of meaning.
Not so with UR FUN. Not only is this release probably the band’s most immediately intelligible in terms of title, but the lyrics have largely lost all nuance as well. Barnes gets away with this for the most part, saved by his compositional prowess and relentless vigour, but even the aforementioned standout You’ve Had Me Everywhere is somewhat lame in its on-the-nose exposition. Elsewhere, the titles and lyrics can verge on the unforgiveable; Get God’s Attention By Being an Atheist and Don’t Let Me Die in America are particularly cringey examples, especially as the latter is mostly a rundown of place names in the States Barnes doesn’t want to expire.
If Of Montreal’s finest works are reminiscent of a shoal of fish darting this way and that in figures-of-eight of furious activity, nibbling away at the edge of a profundity that’s tantalisingly out of reach of the listener, UR FUN is more like an oversized salmon slapped straight into the schnozz. This one-dimensionality to both the music and the lyrics is definitely the weakest point of the album, relegating it to the status of an acceptable addition to Barnes’ canon but nothing likely to change anyone’s prior opinions of the band.