If you’ve been following the journey that is Of Montreal up until now, you know to expect the
unexpected and lots of it. And this time, Kevin Barnes has had a couple of unexpected events in his life
that contribute to his songcraft- falling in love and becoming ‘simulated reality’; paranoid.
Musically, he’s on board with ’80s dance remixes that were too long for the radio, and all 6 tunes here
are 5+ minutes and really 2 songs blended together and fleshed out nearly entirely by Barnes. Making
plenty of use of both saxophones and synth, it’s a funky, groovy, disco and New Wave mashing with
maximalist tendencies and an IQ north of 140, as Barnes delivers a club album for the highly literate.
Now 15 albums deep, Barnes has not come anywhere near running out of ideas; in fact, he seems
reinvented here and with a boundless creativity that parallels his best work to date.
