oF MONTREAL
In the 12 years since Kevin Barnes hit the reset button on of Montreal with 2004’s Satanic Panic in the Attic , his muses have pulled him in an almost unimaginable variety of directions. But despite detours into neo-prog, avant-garde electronica, and country-tinged Americana, Barnes never completely abandons his foundation: the music of David Bowie and Prince. Like both, Barnes is a prolific musical polymath, experimenting widely with styles, themes, and personas while still retaining the core of his aesthetic with every release. But unlike Bowie and Prince, Barnes has shown little interest in contemporary pop music. With Innocence Reaches that changes.
Half-glam rock, half-electronic pop, the 14th of Montreal album is arguably Barnes’ most eclectic release. The chunky riff-rock of “gratuitous abysses” and “les chants de maldoror” don’t break new ground as much as they represent the culmination of everything he was doing over his past two releases. But when Barnes goes for reinvention, he goes all the way. The manipulated vocals and purring androgyny of “let’s relate” and “a sport and a pastime” mark the first time Barnes has created pop music that features more open space than overstuffed textures. As a writer, he is still drawn to provocation, with the not-so-subtle put downs of “my fair lady” and the stereotype-probing “it’s different for girls” providing the album’s most striking moments. Here, Barnes explains what drew him to experimenting with contemporary pop styles, why he’s
