You thought Woody Allen’s coital exploits were icky? Welcome to Skeletal Lamping, which could’ve been titled Everything You Never Wanted To Know About Kevin Barnes’ Sex Life (And Should Be Afraid To Find Out). Barnes’ Of Montreal albums have fast become elaborately constructed confessional booths, to the point where it will be no great surprise if the lyrics on his next platter reveal PIN numbers or medical records. His last, and best, offering, 2007’s Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?, disclosed intimate details about everything from Barnes’ stormy domestic life (“dodging lamps and vegetables”) to his stalled neurotransmitters (“come on, chemicals!”). Skeletal Lamping zeroes in on his bedroom—in spirit, anyway. Recounted love acts also occur in his kitchen (“ass against the sink”), and be forewarned: Once you learn certain things about Barnes’ pleasure palace, you won’t be able to un-learn them. Yet, between musings about black condoms and black shemales, he manages to keep the mood light. The album’s sound is a more intricate remix of Fauna’s futurama, another hyperbaric disco chamber filled with technoodling beats backing pop operettas, while the lyrics sometimes do that magnum opus one better. “I’m so sick of suckin’ the dick of this cruel, cruel city,” he begins “St. Exquisite’s Confessions.” Saintly it ain’t, but a more exquisite confession you’re not likely to find. [www.polyvinylrecords.com]
—Noah Bonaparte Pais
