Will you hold me? I'm scared. It's not that I'm easily frightened. I can sit through the most gruesome horror movie, happily munching away on imitation butter-flavored popcorn while small intestines are strewn about the screen. I can watch news stories about mad cow disease while devouring sheep's brain soufflé. But listening to the latest Of Montreal record, all I can do is curl up in a ball, smile the sick, twisted smile of the damned, and nod my head up and down in a rhythmic fashion.
If you're familiar with the work of Athens popsters Of Montreal, the disconcerting mix of a feeling of imminent implosion and a nagging urge to draw pictures of smiling bunny rabbits I'm experiencing at the moment probably doesn't surprise you. Of Montreal's music, and the bizarre artwork that accompanies it, plays like a surreal carnival-- it can be beautiful, it can be fun, and it can also be weird and creepy.
Coquelicot, like most Of Montreal albums, is at times sublime and lovely, at times infuriatingly catchy, at times simply infuriating, at times overly twee, and at times seriously fucking scary. What sets this record apart from its predecessors, though, is a level of intricacy and detail that Of Montreal have never previously attained as a band. The songs on Coquelicot, though crammed full of saccharine pop hooks, display a level of complex structuring and arrangement that could put most pop records to shame.
Of Montreal's trademark hyperactivity, and melodic yet off-kilter sensibility is possibly at its peak on Coquelicot. Seemingly drawing as much from the English music hall tradition as from American pop acts like the Beach Boys, there's nothing else out there quite like the frenetic, utterly wacked-out pop these guys come up with.
When the record's at its best, the group incorporates more diverse elements into their music than ever before. "Good Morning Mr. Edminton," Coquelicot's opener, is a typical Of Montreal song in prime form. Fuzzed-out guitar, bouncy piano, and multitracked harmonies by frontman Kevin Barnes set the stage for a demented tale of kidnapping and working class struggle as told, of course, from the kidnapper's point of view. "The Peacock Parasols," which features a truly unforgettable, cryptic, and quite possibly misspelled lyric referring to "P.P. icycles," goes from a pop song in warp drive to a dense, orchestral middle, and back.
Though fast-paced pop is clearly the bread and butter of Coquelicot, it's far from the only style to be found on this record. They're not playing around about the "variety of whimsical verse" thing. And sadly, this means the inclusion of the intolerable skit "The Events Leading Up to the Collapse of Detective Dulllight," in which Kevin Barnes seeks to shatter your preconceived notions of reality by introducing a character whose name contains three consecutive "l's." After a series of good songs, nothing's quite as frustrating as hitting a 2\xBD comedy routine in which some guy named Slocks writes a poem called "The Cause of Gauze." And then reads it aloud.
Besides annoying passages like these, the album's most challenging element is its length. At a solid 70 minutes, it's almost impossible to endure an entire sitting. Had the filler been cut, this would easily be their best album yet, but repeated exposure to this stuff for that length of time can't be good for anybody. Of course, I don't have to worry, because I'm a five-footed, owl-headed elf named Figgienewton! Uh-oh...
