Average Metacritic score 79 (25 reviews):
http://www.splendidmagazine.com/review. ... 9310773534
Of Montreal
The Sunlandic Twins (Polyvinyl)
US release date April 12, 2005
Rating: 90
Music geeks, whether on the supply or demand side, tend to be all too well acquainted with a certain sad truth: familiarity breeds contempt. Even regarding the art to which they have, in varying degrees, dedicated their lives. Take that band who "got you through some really tough times" in your tender high-school years; if you ran across them for the first time today, you would probably dismiss them as a group you might go see when they came to town... if you could get in free.
It's all the more refreshing, then, to hear a record so good that a week goes by and you barely notice that you've been listening to nothing else. So good that you find yourself not only singing along, but applying the lyrics to your own life. I became so obsessed with The Sunlandic Twins that it took me several days to get it out of my CD player long enough to spin the bonus EP that comes with it. Even taking into account a recent extemporaneous reunion with acid, that's some good shit.
Of Montreal is Kevin Barnes (of Athens, GA). Barnes played most of the instruments on this recording himself (filling the producer's role as well)... but when he goes on the road, he takes three other musicians along (band alumni include members of Elf Power and Circulatory System); the personnel are necessary to flesh out The Sunlandic Twins' complex layers. Of Montreal's numerous albums are characterized by ambition; they include copiously detailed psychedelic sleeve art by David Barnes, and garner epic categorizations like "indie-pop's equivalent to Sgt. Pepper". Barnes has had his share of over-reachings in the past, but The Sunlandic Twins justifies the effort -- and the undoubtedly ample studio time -- put into it. The record is full of embellishments to reward the headphones-wearer, like scattered castanet accents and hard-panned guitar parts. "Requiem for O.M.M." begins the record on a more "Back in the U.S.S.R." than "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" note (as long as we're trotting out the Beatles comparisons), with a powerful, sound-effects-laden kickoff and an uncharacteristically straight-ahead structure, right down to the cowbell-rockin' chorus. However, there are plenty of fruity synth lines for the stoners. Barnes's lyrics might sound insufferably sappy in someone else's mouth, but in this context he can toss off things like "I never ever stop wondering / Wondering if you still think of us / I don't need a photograph, 'cause you've never left my mind" with aplomb -- and more importantly, with sincerity. Elsewhere, he gets a trifle less starry-eyed (though just as amorous), musing on a perhaps-ill-advised fascination with someone who "fucked the suburbs out of" him in "The Party's Crashing Us". This is one of the disc's catchier tunes, its sing-along chorus anchored with disco bass and four-on-the-floor. The real leading single, though, is "So Begins Our Alabee", which opens with glitchbeats and multitracked washes of vocal harmonies, then breaks into an eighties synth-pop dance-fest.
The Sunlandic Twins is basically thirteen variations on sunny and hallucinogenic, from the jangly psych-pop of "Forecast Fascist Future" to midnight-sun ode "Oslo in the Summertime"'s comparatively minimal almost-menace, or the abrupt but enchanting closer "The Repudiated Immortals". The relentless sweetness may be off-putting to some... but it'll be difficult for all but the most jaded listeners to avoid being charmed by Of Montreal's appealing melodies and whimsical innocence-recaptured lyrics. The Sunlandic Twins does have a certain ephemerality to it -- its forty-odd minutes slip by as quickly as a day at the beach, and it may prove too airy to become a perennial standby. But even if it's only your favorite record for a few weeks, The Sunlandic Twins could very well get you excited about music again.
-- Sarah Zachrich
