Skeletal Lamping

It’s an amorphous and stylistically slippery affair here, with hints of Beck, Bowie, Prince, ‘70s glam, and various shadings of contemporary orchestral pop plus the kind of oddball, smarty-pants weirdness that outfits like Fiery Furnaces are so adept at. Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes is not only on a musical journey, but a personal one, unabashedly exploring themes of introspection, sexual role playing (warning: explicit lyrics ahead!), and inter-relational gamesmanship, throwing down the gauntlet with lyrics like, “I want to show you off, I want to tell you lies; I want to ... make you paranoid and say the sweetest things.” Pop nirvana feels within reach on joyous tracks like “An Eluardian Instance” and “Nonpareil of Favor,” and the sensitive and lovely “Touched Something’s Hollow” might bring on a swoon. But somewhere around “Women’s Studies Victims,” a number of tracks begin to resemble individual, miniature stage dramas... or perhaps inchoate songs searching for their denouement ... and therein lies the challenge. But you’ve been through tougher things. Solider on for your just reward.