| Rating |
Summary |
|
| 3.5 by Rolling Stone |
Kevin Barnes is a married white man whose alter ego is a black transsexual named Georgie Fruit. Transformations come easily to the Of Montreal frontman: Over the past 11 years, he's seamlessly mor... |
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| n/a by www.drownedinsound.com |
Some people are going to think this is a masterpiece, the equal of Hissing Fauna. Others will call it a self indulgent mess that pushes indie-rock somewhere it really wasn't meant to go. Personally, I think both those sound about right. |
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| n/a by www.musicomh.com |
Skeletal Lamping flicks across channels like a man with an itchy trigger finger who trigger finger is actually itchy, but it excels in making a brilliant kind of sense. |
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| n/a by www.urb.com |
Switching, flexible, rug burn reverberation. Of Montreals pretentious compound syllables titillate mind and body, catcalling strangers walking down the street you imagine naked, whose vocabulary is as ripped as the holes in their shirts. |
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| n/a by www.blender.com |
Skeletal Lamping is a new high for this long-running yet just-peaking band. |
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| n/a by www.pastemagazine.com |
Amid its admirably complex compositional compressions, Skeletal Lamping feels like a triple-LP sprawler, despite clocking in at less than an hour. For those who have the patience to hang with Barnes and his freak-outs, it could be a masterpiece. |
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| n/a by www.prefixmag.com |
Epic is the only way to describe the balance of Skeletal Lamping--Barnes isnt afraid to throw everything on tape. |
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| n/a by Billboard |
Barnes isn't so much indulgent as he is overly ambitious and seemingly out of his mind, making Skeletal Lamping as wonderfully brilliant as it is weird. |
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| n/a by www.avclub.com |
Most songs start with a barrage of mini movements, find aural stasis, then give in to stylistic onslaught. It's physically tiring at times, but immaculately arranged. That's less true of Barnes' lyrics. While his words are lysergically colorful and often poetic, any greater meaning is dissolved in an acid bath of too much information. |
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| n/a by www.ew.com |
Barnes plays virtually every instrument. It's impossible not to be impressed by such virtuosic preening. Ultimately, though, only one artist in the world can get away with this shtick for an entire hour-long album. |
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| n/a by www.dustedmagazine.com |
Lamping has some catchy songs and some interesting lyrics, but feels too inconsequential, too easily sloughed off. |
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| n/a by www.guardian.co.uk |
Barnes pushes their ninth album to sometimes unlistenable extremes and although it has its moments--'Touched Something's Hollow' is a beauty--the pleasures to be gained from this sexual experiment are few. |
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| n/a by Popmatters |
Following a dramatic statement of purpose like Hissing Fauna, it shouldnt be too surprising that listening to Skeletal Lamping is a bit of a let-down, but, when removed of comparisons and expectations, its still a nonsensical dancefloor freakfest that only Kevin Barnes could pull off--and, really, what more could you ask of Kevin Barnes? |
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| n/a by www.courant.com |
Barnes and company's ninth studio album isn't as catchy or cohesive as the past few, hitting upon sublime moments--like when he quietly asks Why I am so damaged?--that are frustratingly few and far between. |
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| n/a by Pitchfork Media |
Ultimately Skeletal Lamping registers as a misstep, but not without loads of silver lining. |
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| n/a by www.adequacy.net |
Barnes is literally all over the place and his cryptic storytelling makes for an eccentric album. And although each song may shift styles five or six times, as a whole, its a tightly constructed and smartly shaped listen. |
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| n/a by latimesblogs.latimes.com |
There are 1,000 ideas in 15 songs, and all of them are appealing. But most get short shrift in this manic adventure that bogs down too many songs with exhaustive tonal changes and an overreliance on Barnes layered falsetto vocals. |
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| n/a by www.slantmagazine.com |
Taken in isolation, the individual movements in these songs and the different voices of the narrators are never less than engaging. |
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| n/a by www.tinymixtapes.com |
Skeletal Lamping is by no means a bad album; rather, after such an organic and fully realized career milestone as Hissing Fauna, the difficulty of finding a new direction is a creatively arduous one, and of Montreals experimentation here is notable overall. |
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| n/a by www.cokemachineglow.com |
It is exactly the record youd expect Kevin Barnes to make right now: briefly, the concept record as heart failure. Seriously. Never before has engaging in serious cardiomyopathic trade been this remote, or satisfying. |
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| n/a by www.sputnikmusic.com |
Skeletal Lamping lacks a satisfactory, uh, idea. None are progressed, thoroughly provoked, just simply thrown out the speakers in hopes that we are transfixed by its oh-so literal translation of Barnes Georgie Fruit act. |
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| n/a by thephoenix.com |
This feast isnt without a good deal of filler. |
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| n/a by www.noripcord.com |
Skeletal Lamping is the brain dump of a troubled psyche, and you shouldnt feel too bad if you ultimately dont get it. I dont think youre supposed to. |
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