Grade: 83% (B)
It would be difficult to consider anything that of Montreal does "experimental" in comparison to their other albums. While 2007's Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? had a whole lot of triply psych-pop, 2010's False Priest was soul-funk mixed with some pop (see the track with Beyonce's younger sister Solange). However, there is a moment on the opening track of their newest album in which Kevin Barnes' voice skip's with computer filtering and sounds eerily similar to Thom Yorke on Radiohead's weirded out yet excellent Amnesiac. It seems as if of Montreal is doing some similar "weirding out" on Paralytic Stalks.
The darkness of the record is evident from the very first line of that very first track. While on the cheerful and sexually charged False Priest Barnes opened up singing, "i see it girlfriend, i got so lucky with you," he opens their latest album with, "you are what parasites evolved from, still an unanswered question." Yes, there is a gloomier aspect to this LP than their previous few releases. However, some of the pop elements and escalating harmonies of the albums from their past are still out there to be found. The previously mentioned powerful first track flows into the blissful instruments of the next even though it is still accompanied by some negative lyrics. The whole album is littered with glimpses of their poppier past.
The record as a whole shows intriguing transitions between this light and dark. It's as if Barnes was battling between a subtle happiness and a deep depression while writing both the music and the lyrics. These transitions grab the listeners attention during the laggish part of some tracks. There are also in between stages, where the mood is of a very neutral feeling, leaning towards a wicked side.
The lyrics, while more shadowy than in the past, still have their classic form. He takes a perfect combination of those archetypal exteriors and mixes them with the dismal mood of the entire record. On one song he sings, "ahh i got your letter and it hurt me in so many ways," while the very next track he sings, "lately you're the only human i believe in," and later speaks, "i wanna get all fucked up and tell you how i really feel." It's something we've all heard before from the Athens group while it's also new in the sense that it is surrounded by this ongoing battle between light and dark.
All of this being said, the standout character of this record is in it's structure. It is nine tracks in total, pushing fifty eight minutes. It includes four songs over seven minutes, with one over thirteen, and one under three minutes. The track listing is clearly an integral part of the album.The shortened songs are set to the front, getting the major pop themes out of the way, and then flows into the shortest song, "Malefic Dowery," which leads you into not knowing what will come next. The last four are each over seven minutes and total over thirty-seven minutes as a whole.
Throughout these tracks, you are set on thinking that predominantly the darkness has consumed Barnes while brief windows of opportunity make you think differently. There is an inspiring moment on "Ye, Renew the Plaintiff" that is only cut off when he is on the verge of screaming, "it's eating a hole in me," over a guitar solo that seems to have erupted from a mental asylum. As it breaks down into an affected voice that is yet again reminiscent of Radiohead, it teases a cracked out ending only to break into a spiraling instrumental jam sampling copious amounts of instruments.
This record is tripped out and poppy, and as we mentioned on "Wintered Debts," it samples a little bit from their discography as a whole. As a whole, the constant struggle between good and evil is both annoying and addicting to the listener as you are holding on to hear what will come next. This is most evident through the last two tracks which combine to nearly twenty-one minutes. The second to last is yet another track that stumbles along like a back LCD trip. As the final song begins, there is hope for a happy ending to the album until it yet again descends into the creepy aura that we have often compared to Radiohead circa Kid A and Amnesiac. However, even as it seems though Barnes has given into the depression, he responds with one of the most inspiring album endings I've heard in my lifetime. The song rises upward into Kevin alone on the piano as he sings, "till this afternoon i was a nomad, no country would call me it's son." The piece is beautiful and stirring as the voice sings of himself as an outcast who is finally accepted. The hair-raising voices that arise are no longer disturbing, but instead warm, as they surround the character and welcome him into their clan.
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