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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Come disconnect the dots with me, March 30, 2005
Of Montreal shifted gears somewhere along the road: instead of psychedelic folkpop, they began dabbling in catchy, humorous electropop. That sound is at the heart of "Satanic Panic in the Attic," a solid album that preserves their weird sensibilities, but changes their sound.
It's obvious from the beginning that this is essentially a psychedelic dance album: "Disconnect the Dots" opens with a gloriously catchy electronic tune, which is just a few beats too slow from being "poppy." And the lunatic lyrics are kept the same in songs like the lighthearted "Lysergic Bliss": "And I'm dizzy from her kiss/so vertiginous lost in lysergic bliss."
After that, the sound gets even more diverse, with Afrobeats and xylophone get mixed in with Beatlesque guitar pop. Frontman Kevin Barnes even dabbles in bass-pop in "Lester Loses His Wife." The biggest break in form is an acoustic ballad in the fragile "City Bird," a flute-and-guitar number that urges a "city bird" to seek its true place in the sky.
Time has passed, and Of Montreal seems to have grown up a little. In "Satanic Panic," Barnes muses on how "all I ever get is sad love," and laments "I think the chemicals have done/some evil thing to me" over a buzzing acid-pop tune. Fortunately, these songs don't overshadow the fun that brims out of most of the other songs.: Mischief comes into the song with the wonderfully gruesome "Chrissy Kiss The Corpse," about some people having fun with a corpse at a bus stop.
There's a greater electronic influence in this album, something which might be "new-wavey" if it weren't as loopy and folky. Under the blips and waves, however, are some solid drums, guitars and basslines, which form the basis of the catchier tunes. True to their history, the band also weaves in some keyboard and odd instrumentation. (Xylophone?)
And Kevin Barnes presides over it all like an oddball god, turning his rather unmelodious voice into a fun centerpiece for every song. Not every singer could sing a love song that says, "All of these faces are crowding around me/with mouths open wide to devour/But they have no impact no I do not cower/knowing I'm safe in your tower."
"Satanic Panic in the Attic" settles happily into the niche the Beatles might have had, if they had played new wave psychedelica. Great fun, and a worthy Of Montreal album.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Promise Fulfilled, April 7, 2004
It's been a rough couple of years for us Of Montreal fans. Their last two release, "Coquelicot Amongst The Poppies (A Variety of Whimsical Verse)" and "Aldhils Arboretum," while repleat with the pop-perfect weirdness that is songwriter Kevin Barnes's bread-and-butterflies, were beginning to feel - well, let's say a tad over-ripe. Packed with filler material (from sub-par songlets to over-long "literary" passages), these albums felt like dull attempts to recapture the love, excitement, and sheer genius of such early Barnes masterpieces as "The Gay Parade" and "The Bedside Drama (A Petite Tragedy)." Flash forward to Fall 2003. Barnes announces on Of Montreal's Web site (www.ofmontreal.net) that their new record, "Satanic Panic in the Attic," would be "a little electronic" - panic, right? Right. But then the pieces fell into place: "Sad Love" (retitled on this record "Eros' Entropic Tundra") was released as part of a Valentine's day comp, the opening track "Disconnect the Dots" was put up on the band site, and "Rapture Rapes the Muses" was leaked by their Australian label. And what, may you ask, did THIS pop fan do? Jump for joy. Kevin Barnes has hit a new level of brilliance on this album, fulfilling the promise of the band's other records. Unlike "Aldhils Arboretum," Barnes isn't afraid to reveal his freakish side, allowing the inner child to play catch with songs like "Lysergic Bliss" and "Chrissie Kiss The Corpse," maybe the greatest song about necrophelia NOT from a Norwegian black metal band (but don't quote me on that). "City Bird" is hands-down his most beautiful composition, the melody gently pressing down on soap bubble-brittle guitar work. "Vegan in Furs," "Spike the Senses," and "How Lester Lost His Wife" smack of indie posturing, but in the best way possible - raging guitars, bouncing drums, and the whimsical Syd Barrett-meets-ISB lyrics that we all know and love. And c'mon - "Vegan in Furs." How funny is that? Get it? "VEGAN In Furs"? Ha! But perhaps the strongest track on the brilliant outing is the aforementioned "Sad Love" a/k/a "Eros' Entropic Tundra." Barnes condenses into the lyric ("I was walking with my parents in St. Peter's Park/When I saw a young couple with a child/They were all holding hands and smiling"), the arrangement (strings, organ, thumping drum, disco bass, and a distorted kazoo chorus), and vocal delivery (innocent misery) everything that fans of Of Montreal have grown to know and love. A perfect song, and if he'd kept the old title, it might've been a minor MTV2 hit. Oh, well. So there we have it - Barnes & Co. (well, really just Barnes in his apartment) have delivered one of the great underground pop-psychedelic records of all time. If Barnes has been trying to re-create shades of The Zombies's "Odessey & Oracle" throughout his career, as I think he has, then he's definitely succeeded here - this is as perfectly hewned and lushly produced as any of the great underground psychedelic masterpieces of the 1960s, and deserves its place on your shelf along with them. Five stars. A masterpiece, plain and simple.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Best, Most Well-Rounded Of Montreal Album!, December 17, 2005
Wow! If you listen to Of Montreal's acclaimed album "The Gay Parade" and then follow it up with a listen to "Satanic Panic In the Attic" you will be surprised that you are listening to the same band. The once whimsical circus music that enveloped their two concept albums "The Gay Parade" and "Coquelicot Asleep In the Poppies" is not entirely gone, but it has evolved into something much better, and much more accessible to the casual listener.
Begining with the Kinks/Monkees reminiscent track "Disconnect the Dots," it becomes very obvious that you are listening to a different Of Montreal. One could attribute this change to the record label switch to Polyvinyl, but we can't be entirely sure. What is sure is that for the next 13 tracks you are taken on a pop rollercoaster, and it's one of the greatest rides of 2004. Not only that, but the song "Rapture Rapes the Muses" is quite possibly the best indie pop song of all time, at least in the last few years. There's pretty much nothing to hate about this album, and with a group as fun-loving and easy-going as Of Montreal, that's not too hard to accomplish.
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