MISS BLONDE, YOUR PAPA IS FAILING

MISS BLONDE, YOUR PAPA IS FAILING by Of Montreal.

Over the course of this year the album I've played more than any other has been Of Montreal's "Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?" I think it's a masterpiece in an age when the album qua album is increasingly irrelevant. I don't know much about the backstory for the album except what I hear in the lyrics themselves. The short version is Kevin Barnes's relationship fell apart and he spent a summer in Norway dealing with the fallout. Or something like that. However it worked out, he made some remarkable songs. Wonderfully elastic tunes (surprisingly funky as well) paired with incredibly bleak and direct lyrics. Which sounds like a tried and true pop formula over the years--and it is--but that takes nothing away from the scale of his achievement, and I'm sure nothing away from how difficult it surely was to record them.

A few weeks ago I discovered that Of Montreal released an EP called "Icons, Abstract Thee" (believe me, the directness of the lyrics is in direct contrast to the obtuseness of these titles), so I went and tracked it down. In my opinion, a few of these songs are just as strong as anything on the album. Here's one, Miss Blonde, Your Papa Is Failing, that is just beautiful. But also, as bleak and bitter as anything you're likely to hear all year.

LISTEN.

Photo: Le Croix (1).