Ever since the huge acclaim “Hissing Fauna” received back in 2007, the popular opinion is that of Montreal haven’t come anywhere close to reaching that level of achievement since. That isn’t how I feel. “Skeletal Lamping” was a mess, but it was a beautiful mess. “False Priest” wasn’t the type of album we would want to hear from oM, but it was still a good album regardless. Then, “thecontrollersphere EP”, the rushed finale to the “series” of albums that began with “Hissing Fauna”, was released last year. It was originally intended to be an album, not an EP, and that wasn’t the only thing fans were confused about. The content of the EP were the songs left on the cutting room floor from the “False Priest” sessions, not original material. I still liked it, but it still gave some people that “Amnesiac” feeling.
The question was though, why was “thecontrollersphere” wrapped up so quick? Why was it so rushed? I think it was because the characters that Kevin Barnes had created were beginning to irritate even him. He just wanted to move on. Well, he has, and quite simply he’s cut the shit. No more trans-gender alter ego’s, no more sexual confessions. What he got up to during his marriage separation is now his own business. The thing is, they haven’t gone back to the drawing board, they’ve gone back to oM basics, and I mean that in a good way.
Vocally and lyrically, Barnes hasn’t sounded this sweet or sincere for a long, long time and the vocal structures are very similar to the good ol “Satanic Panic” days. It’s beautiful and heart melting. That is until the actual songs end and erupt into drone for five minutes before we hear another jangly pop song.
The tracks here are long, and I mean long. All the tracks on the last half of the album range from seven to thirteen minutes! There is no need for them to be this long whatsoever. There’s a lot of fat that needs to be trimmed and the album plays out like a test of the listener’s patience when there isn’t much of a song to clutch on to. How long can you listen for until you get sick? It’s not just with the long songs, either. Opening track “Gelid Ascent” doesn’t start until ten seconds in and when it does there’s a full minute until the song really starts after a lot of inaudible spoken word and atrocious drone. It sounds as if it was recorded under water. When the song finally does kick in, though, it gives you reason to be excited for the next 58 minutes.
My two favourite and not coincidentally the shortest tracks are the ones that are pure pop with sing-a-long lyrics that are the band’s forte. “I spend my waking hours haunting my life/I made the one I love start crying tonight and it felt good/ Still there must be a more elegant solution”. This is just one of the many memorable verses on “Spiteful Intervention” and is classic Barnes storytelling with the juxtaposition of insanely depressing lyrics with magical jangle pop goodness. And of course there’s the great “Dour Percentage”, which is fairly reminiscent of Elton John.
The very best two moments of the album occur on the final track, “Authentic Pyrrhic Remission”, which borders on 14 minutes. The first moment I’m talking about is the actual song, which is the first three minutes and it’s great. The second moment is the final two minutes of the song, which is also great, but the nine-minute gap between these moments cancel them out. These nine minutes consist of one big sound that’s made up of sci-fi-like noises connected together by one long drone. Edit some sound bites of the Star Trek teleporter and a Jedi waving his light saber around and boom, you have this song.
The worst and penultimate song on the album, “Exorcism Breeding Knife” is a whole experimental and almost instrumental track dedicated to the abysmal sound occupied by half of the album. It is a bad fucking song. It is over seven minutes long and it gets very irritating. I especially can’t imagine any fan that got in to the band after hearing “Sex Karma” will find this appealing. Those fans are also likely to be put off by oM’s ever-worsening choice of track names. I’ve mentioned the worst, such as “Exorcism Breeding Knife” and “Authentic Pyrrhic Remission”. Other stingers include; “Ye, Renew The Plaintiff”, “Malefic Dowery” and “Gelid Ascent”.
So although I said that they’ve gone back to basics, it’s definitely clear that oM have tried to be psychedelic. The problem with this album is it doesn’t sound as if it’s been produced or mixed, and that is not what psychedelia is. Not that I don’t love some of the new additions; I love the woodwind instruments that open the wonderful “Wintered Debts” and the piano ballad at the end of “Authentic Pyrrhic Remission”. On an album marred by thick, over-long instrumentals, these sort of fleet touches are a relief.
I am a big of Montreal fan and I am also really hard to please, so a new oM album with classic traits and a risky new sound results in mixed opinions from me. I both love “Paralytic Stalks” but it’s difficult to listen to a song from beginning to end never mind the full album! It is a shame as it is technically the first original album they’ve done since Hissing Fauna. I have never been so torn or on the fence about an album like I am with this. What I have decided to do is to accept “Paralytic Stalks” and wait for the next oM tirade, but until that comes we have a wonderful, terrible, fascinating, treacherous, glorious, annoying album to wear out.
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