Heimdalsgate is the street where Kevin Barnes, the sole-trader and only real member of of Montreal, lives while in Oslo with his Norwegian wife Nina and daughter, Alabee. It sounds a seductive existence: the tight-knit home trio relaxes in the serenity of an Oslo moonlit night. Barnes occasionally treks to the basement to concoct some undoubted pop, soda-stream bliss. He is anonymous, yet relevant, and from his pie-in-the-sky palace he is free to create and communicate at his will… “I’m in a crisis/I need help/C’mon mood shift, shift back to good again.” ‘Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse’.

You do not have to scratch too deeply at Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? to draw blood. But as lyrically morose as this collection of songs is, Barnes proves to be quite the musical linguist. Able to beg, plead, scrape and claw his way through rough seas and Norway’s legendary 18 hour darkness with the lightest, electro, Prince-on-acid pop – Hissing Fauna is a dupe, grinning idiotically as he is beaten.

Musically as light as the heavens, ‘A Sentence Of Sorts in Kongsvinger’ is the signature sound of of Montreal: electro-roaming bass, laced with a spluttering of 80s cheese synth and hand clap snare hits. It is ideal ‘new’ pop.  Simultaneously sprightly and sullen, Of Montreal proves as chemical as any musical substance; you cannot have the raging highs without the vicious come-down: “Through many dreadful nights/ I lay praying to a saint that nobody has heard of.”

Depression is as cutting as the most menacing and malignant of gangrenous tumours. But after decades of bleeding-heart artists and weeping, bookish balladeers sighing for public remittance over their:

a)    disastrous childhood;
b)    fame-ridden life;
c)    eating disorder/drug abuse/sex addiction/marital woes.

It is genuinely hard to feel for anyone with more money than yourself, especially those who seem to be stripping their celebrity for every last headline. Never on Hissing Fauna will you feel this way. Barnes’ torment is as genuine as his obvious affection for the early 1990s dance-pop and breathy voice-overs of dirty hits like Salt-N- Pepa’s ‘Push It’.

With ‘Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse’ of Montreal continues his loquacious titular battle with Sufjan Stevens. Like his much lauded adversary, Barnes has the knack of intricate but memorable song writing. ‘Heimdalsgate’ is the pudding of proof. These subtleties include the before-drum-entry rhythm section which sounds as if an epileptic is drowning in a gas mask full of bong water while a hyperactive child is blowing bubbles in a thick-shake. The memorable aspect being the addictive chorus refrains, they hang in your head like the mantras of late-night motivational coaches. Both are able to spill from your mouth at completely the wrong time.While this description may sound rooted in absolute nonsensical absurdity (like any good Dr Seuss book) it is fitting to include such references when you are dealing with an album that contains a self confessed black, she-male alter-ego named Georgie Fruit. It is Miss Fruit that provides the balancing act, as Barnes is now under the influence of anti-depressants.

‘Bunny Ain’t No Kind Of Rider’ is where the doppelganger come alive with a distinctively Prince-like funk. Early indications of psychedelic ramblings and Space Invader noises do little to engage and the growing fear of this Fruit alter-ego leading us into a feral warren hole seems justified. Similarly, ‘Faberge Falls For Shuggie’, while vocally unique and worthy of split personality status, meanders.

‘Labyrinthian Pomp’ is the redemption. A hybrid of OutKast-style, funk-haughtiness and sexed-up Beck cockiness, Georgie Fruit is finally revealing the depth of her goods. The straight-out-of-the-book Pink Floydian conclusion is strangely effective and alluring. This ship has been righted again.

When a nearing 12-minute epic is encapsulated in an album of five-minute-and-less popsicles even the musically mute must stand to attention. ‘The Past Is A Grotesque Animal’ destroys the musical mismatch of sweetly pout instrumentation and dark lyricism, with an aim for the jugular. Barnes is unmistakably cutting the lifeline, splitting the album’s two personas. Like a clumsy severance of an umbilical cord or a drunkenly performed frenectomy, this warts-and-all portrayal misses the pretty brevity of ‘City Bird’ (from 2004’s Satanic Panic In The Attic) and a much needed, wise-hand laundering.

of Montreal’s Hissing Fauna is a frenetic fun-fest. Down on the blade of himself, Barnes has erected a dazzling and complex monument to the world of anxiety, neuroticism and depression. Worthy of repeat, bold enough to be inviting, relevant and referential; Hissing Fauna is a bright-spot antidote to even the most dogged melancholy.