Of Montreal Unique Storytelling

Of Montreal is a solo songwriter project from Athens Ga., primary songwriter Kevin Barnes
in his discography crafts whimsical heart-wrenching clever melodic songs that encapsulate one
of the most unique forms of storytelling and songwriting I’ve seen. His debut album Cherry Peel
is one that I would describe as very good. So when I was listening to this album it was safe to
say I was going in expecting nothing but improvement.
What I was met with was a bit less than that, The first half of this album was pretty good, I think
Kevin really encapsulates this certain youthfulness and hope in his voice, it’s like the emotions
of a child being conveyed especially in songs like Happy Yellow Bumble Bee. The production on
this album is great, I feel that sometimes this album falls victim to becoming a little boring. In my
opinion a great album has the power to have every song stand out alone as a single yet at the
same time transition well into the feelings of the other songs on the album. This album is
cohesive, but so was Cherry Peel, what I liked about Cherry Peel was that nearly every song
was clever and did for the majority stand alone. This album has some songs that can be a plain
crime and at times boring. These songs aren’t that long, its 16 songs with a runtime of roughly
40 minutes. Kevin makes short sweet heartwarming acoustic performances on this album and if
that was his goal he accomplished it a couple of times. So for that reason, Im going to give this
album a 5. Generally, I did not like a lot of the songs on this album but those few that I liked I
would rate 7-10 individually.
Some of my favorite songs are Sing You A Love You Song, Honeymoon In San Francisco, and
Happy Yellow Bumblebee