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Of Montreal: Cocquelicot Asleep in the Poppies
BY JOHN HYMAN
Being from Atlanta, I often hear Yalies express their certitude that Southerners are just a bunch of ignorant reactionary types unfit for sophisticated Northeast Corridor society. We now have irrefutable proof, however, that this prejudice is pure bunk, and that proof is a band called Of Montreal. Of Montreal is not of Canadian origin, but is rather from Athens, Ga. If we Southerners were really all narrow-minded rednecks, there's no way this group could have lasted long enough to make one record, let alone four, because we would have run their wacky asses out of town on a damn rail.
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You want wacky? How's this for a title: Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies: A Variety of Whimsical Verse. What does it sound like? Y'all ever heard the phrase "kitchen-sink production?" Well, here that would be an understatement of the first order. For example, track 12 is "Go Call You Mine," which runs 1:29 and has precisely 29 different words and 25 different instruments (going on the assumption, of course, that "voice percolating" and "voice through swinging hose" qualify as separate instruments).
What, exactly, is the point? I mean, any self-respecting rap artist can kill off a minute and a half just by waxing poetic about his weed, or his "ice," or whatever. These guys have to go and buy a freaking marimba. There's no reason not to go nuts on instrumentation; I'm of the school of thought that doing it for its own sake is detrimental from a musical standpoint.
Of Montreal's tendency to overdo things to the point of distraction is unfortunate, because leader and main songwriter Kevin Barnes has an ear for good melody. There aren't a lot of pop writers around who could touch "It's Just So," a lovely (if a little corny) ballad that sounds like it's straight out of the Brian Wilson catalog. A lot of the tracks on the record have one or two melodies that jump out at you, but mostly they just get buried in a maelstrom of wild shifts in tempo and dynamics. Again, there's nothing wrong with this per se; the Band used to do it all the time in songs such as "Chest Fever." Mostly, though, it just strikes you as arbitrary here, like Of Montreal wants want nothing but to mess with your ears.
In addition to being off-kilter musically, Coquelicot's lyrics are downright bizarre. Representative passages: "When Detective Dulllight returning from the catacombs/First heard the news of the Slocks and Slovets stabbing and subsequent/Poetry enterprise he immediately fell to the floor/And began plucking peaches from his cheeks." There's also "I like you 'cause you look like a giraffe." Maybe the guy has a fetish for girls with long necks...who the hell knows?
It's clear that these guys have listened to the Beatles quite a bit, particularly Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Insofar as Sgt. Pepper's—rock's gold standard for sonic inventiveness—is memorable, it is largely so due to the strength of the material. Say what you will about the production values of "A Day in the Life" or "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," but above all else they're great songs. On Coquelicot, Barnes et al. leave no stone unturned in their studio experimentation, but too often seem to forget that while the bells and whistles are nice, they're not the whole show, and are just really annoying after a certain point. I would ask for more substance next time, but I fear that these guys, if Coquelicot is any indication, may already be too far gone. (Kindercore.)
All materials © 2001 The Yale Herald, Inc., and its staff.
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