Of Montreal: Skeletal Lamping

Of Montreal: Skeletal Lamping The Ninth studio album from Athens, GA's Of Montreal is a concept album chronicling lead singer Kevin Barnes transformation to Georgie Fruit, a 40-year-old black man who has been through multiple sex changes. Sound weird? It is. Of Montreal has never been a regular band. Their brand of psychedelic pop is both catchy and a little disturbing. Often they comes off as maniacal and a bit sinister. Perhaps none of their albums have been as confusing as Skeletal Lamping. The character of Georgie Fruit first appeared on Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? during the song "Labyrinthian Pomp". Now Georgie Fruit has an entire album dedicated to him. During an interview Kevin Barnes elaborated about the character "The character's name is Georgie Fruit, and he's in his late forties, a black man who has been through multiple sex changes. He's been a man and a woman, and then back to a man. He's been to prison a couple of times. In the 70s he was in a band called Arousal, a funk rock band sort of like the Ohio Players." The album is full of explicit scenes of turning tricks both as a man and a woman and lots of drug use. The music is fairly dancey which is to be expected for a guy who was in a band similar to the Ohio Players. I'm not a huge fan of concept albums, usually music ends up being compromised to fit the whole story into the format of an album. In Of Montreal's case, I think they do a great job making the music still music while getting the "story" across. The story is a little strange for my taste as is much of the music. There was a lot I liked about Hissing Fauna but Skeletal Lamping seems even more off the deep end. Too much off the deep end for me. Rating: 6.3/10 MP3: Of Montreal "Wicked Wisdom" Buy: iTunes, Insound