Of Saskatchewan Just Didn't Have The Same Zing

Of Montreal "Suffer For Fashion"

Of Montreal "The Past Is A Grotesque Animal"

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Picking up where 2005's The Sunlandic Twins left off, Hissing Faunna Are You The Destroyer is the latest offering from the essentially one man band of Kevin Barnes, aka Of Montreal. Long ago I used to drive around in a friend's car who would constantly play records like 1997's Cherry Peel , whereas Of Montreal sounded much like a lo-fi Pet Sounds. The sound of today's Of Montreal records are that of ridiculous drum machine beats and tweaked out keyboards burying the VU needle.

Not that this is a bad thing, "The Party's Crashing Us" from the last record is possibly one of my favorite songs of all time. Although I think I may have ruined for myself by overplaying it. It currently stands at 31 plays in my iTunes which is extremely high considering the amount of songs that are currently in that library. Hissing Fauna is a winner right from the starting track, "Suffer For Fashion", which is very reminiscent of "The Party's Crashing Us". Its reference to the songs beat per minute is just the latest in a long line of clever observations used by Barnes on his record.

"The Past Is A Grotesque Animal", clocking in at 11:53 is the record's centerpiece. A hypnotic remberance of the small moments that make up life, it carries with the smallest details of the past that we all seem to remember much more vividly than the grand story. At least that's how I remember it. Wait, we're still talking about Prince's Lovesexy right?