Pitchfork

One drawback of being a great songwriter is that consistency is often mistaken for monotony. Witness: Of Montreal lead man Kevin Barnes, who has made his name on mirthful choruses that often sound suspiciously similar. But Barnes is anything but short on ideas, as Satanic Panic in the Attic, the band's 2004 chef d'ouvre, attests. Cumulative yet innovative, the album douses classically saccharine and vaguely psychedelic indie pop in gratuitous amounts of syrup. The key: Of Montreal handle the powerful flavors with soufflé-like gentleness.

By contrast, The Sunlandic Twins, the band's new album, is like a restaurant with multiple Michelin stars serving Sno-Cones. Missing Satanic Panic's multidimensionality, the album feels like the hollowed-out shell of something great. Barnes can sleepwalk through a book of staff paper and come away with a set of leakproof pop songs-- or, in this case, a "foray into 21st century A.D.D. electro cinematic avant-disco-- and that effortlessness lends Of Montreal's music a sort of indifference. The high-glucose diet that fueled the band's previous outings has landed them in a sugar coma. Blissfully adrift, The Sunlandic Twins lacks the essential reflexivity of Satanic Panic in the Attic's ethereally silly pop gems.

The Sunlandic Twins isn't without its share of coruscating hooks and major-key shenanigans. "Requiem for O.M.M." is powered by a galloping bass line, which draws back to let the succinct two-line chorus take center stage. Barnes' kaleidoscopic artwork (somebody give this man a larger format) complements the music, especially "I Was Never Young": both seem plucked from the overripe fantasy realms of "Sonic the Hedgehog". The song features a laid-back, strutting rhythm, onto which the instrumentation gradually builds until a trumpet fanfare calls in a tempo change. Abetted by handclaps and a bopping guitar line, the section recalls Satanic Panic's snaking, poperatic song structures.

Elsewhere, "Forecast Fascist Future" and "So Begins Our Alabee" are airy but satisfying, meeting their melody quota while managing to have some fun with synthesizers. But around its midway point, The Sunlandic Twins takes a strange turn. "So Begins Our Alabee" initiates the second act: a self-styled electro pop opera with a startling lack of, well, songs. This independent, self-contained experiment has no business intermingling with the respectable opening set. A few tracks outshine their surroundings by dint of simplicity. "Oslo in the Summertime" rescues a glistening chorus from the maw of wandering pianos, twittering drum machines, and synth glides sandwiching it. "October Is Eternal", meanwhile, is admirable only for its titular appositeness: The song milks a discordant piano dirge for nearly three minutes before fizzling out in an ululating vocal loop and cheap-o MIDI instruments.

Of Montreal have always been silly, but The Sunlandic Twins is plain daffy. "Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games" and "The Party's Crashing Us" are condescendingly aloof, piling on excessive amounts of sound: On the latter, a traffic jam of synths produces the oversaturated colors of a mangled paint palette. Particularly annoying among the record's contrivances is its frivolous use of drum machines, which skip and stutter when the songs call for simple beats.

Barnes is still an impeccable craftsman, but these songs won't make your brain spongy like Satanic Panic's "Lysergic Bliss". This time, it sounds like Barnes is the one whose brain is gummed up. Of Montreal have accomplished the rare feat of honing an unusually nuanced signature sound. But with such a skilled songwriter at the helm, they should be making great records, checking the conceptual dalliances at the door.

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