Is Kevin Barnes tired of sex? In the past three years, the waifish Of Montreal auteur has reinvented himself as a psychedelic Prince, leaving behind the innocent Elephant 6 storybook for a sweaty concoction of synthesizers and seduction. On the masterful Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, Barnes battled depression and gave birth to a lascivious Mr. Hyde. Things only got more X-rated on Skeletal Lamping, an overstuffed orgy in both lyrical content and musical density overseen by Barnes' transvestite alter ego, Georgie Fruit. False Priest, the third part of this tarted-up trilogy, shows that Barnes is serious about his new phase, while also suggesting it might have gone stale.
For someone so concerned lately with coupling, Barnes' recording process over this period has been a largely solitary pursuit. False Priest is billed as a more collaborative effort, both on the production end with musical savant Jon Brion and in the spotlighted duets with divas Janelle Monáe and Solange Knowles. The outside influences play the role of Ritalin to Barnes' ADD, but the leaner sound reveals flaws even as it proposes ways to rebuild.
Take the duets, which offer the opportunity for Barnes' R&B fantasy camp to become reality; putting aside the fact that Barnes had already gotten pretty good at singing in duet, or trio, or chorus, with himself. "Enemy Gene", with Janelle Monáe, fares better of the two, not surprising given how her The ArchAndroid revealed Monáe as one of the few spirits restless enough to keep pace with Barnes. Turning particle physics and evolutionary biology into pillow talk, the (relatively) subdued track both features and is aptly described by Mellotron. However, Knowles' appearance, "Sex Karma", is a straightforward Jacksons pastiche built around the lamest double-entendre in Barnes' career: the John Mayer-esque leer, "you look like a playground to me."
Elsewhere, the duet is less between voices but between the musical palettes of Barnes and Brion, which prove compatible but are clearly differentiated. The letdown is that Brion's influence sounds less collaborative than cosmetic, as though Barnes showed up with a 95% complete album on his laptop and the duo merely set about punching up Of Montreal's characteristically thin sound. Still, the places where Brion's fingerprints (and gear) are most apparent are some of the album's highlights: the Wendy Carlos-style vocoder on the chorus of "Like a Tourist", the thicker guitar chug of "Coquet Coquette" and "Famine Affair", the lush, astral coda of "Our Riotous Defects".
But the first part of "Our Riotous Defects", handcuffed by funny-once spoken-word, is one of several indications that this Of Montreal era is running on fumes. The most enticing aspects of the band's R&B are the places where it deviates from the recipe: its acidic, self-loathing undercurrent, its sugar-high unpredictability. Barnes' tongue isn't quite as sharp on False Priest, and all the shock value has worn off of falsetto-funk tracks such as "Hydra Fancies" or "I Feel Ya' Strutter".
I wouldn't worry about Of Montreal, as they've proven themselves more than capable of evolving. The distance from their early tales of wax museums and mad scientists to Barnes' electro-glam hedonism is immense, but the switch produced an unlikely second, higher peak in the band's career. If False Priest signals that we may be on the downhill side of that summit, it may also contain the embryonic stages of the next ascent, just as 2005's The Sunlandic Twins contained the seeds of Barnes' metamorphosis. Should budget allow, a truer collaboration with Brion could speed the arrival of Of Montreal Mk. III, but it might also be time for Barnes to find his muse outside of the bedroom.
