Album of the Week: Freewave Lucifer f<ck f^ck f>ck

I find myself telling people about Record Club all the time, mostly because I'm pretty proud of this thing. It's been 336 weeks in a row! That's a really long fucking time! How many other things in your life have existed for 336 weeks in a row without break? I'll admit that it's easier to talk about during some weeks than others, though. Mostly because the inevitable question of "what's this week's album?" comes up, and it's easier to say "a Phil Collins album!" than "a long-running niche psych-plus band from Athens called Of Montreal with their recent album..." and then I find myself saying the f-word three times in a row and they're wondering if this is actually the sort of music club they'd be interested in or if the music is too weird. I'll argue that weird music is the shit that's actually worth exploring, but that's not really how most people operate.

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WEEK 336 — July 6-12, 2025

Freewave Lucifer f<ck f^ck f>ck

by Of Montreal

LISTEN:

Spotify | YouTube | Bandcamp | Apple

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PICKED BY VOTE

CATEGORY OF VOTING: "Silly Titles, Who Knows What They Sound Like." Pretty self-explanatory. I just like the idea of the title of the album appearing in the blog post title, and that title being as ridiculous as possible. The album that one has a title that's particular strange, especially because it fucks up the html so badly. I had to learn how to place the title in the blogging header without triggering the brackets. You learn something new every day!

LOSING ALBUMS: I'm Gay, I'm Happy by Lil B; No More Stories / Are Told Today / I'm Sorry / They Washed Away // No More Stories / The World Is Grey / I'm Tired / Let's Wash Away by Mew; Penis Envy by Crass; Those Who Throw Objects at the Crocodiles Will Be Asked to Retrieve Them by Bruno Pernadas; Zungguzungguguzungguzeng by Yellowman. This is like the third poll that Yelloman has appeared on with this album. He will win eventually!!!

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ALBUM DETAILS

GENRE: Neo-psychedelia, psychedelic pop, art pop, electropop, progressive pop, indietronica, synthpop, alternative dance, synthwave

RELEASED: July 29, 2022

LENGTH: 33:53

TRACKLIST:

1. Marijuana's a Working Woman
2. Ofrenda-Flanger-Ego-à Gogo
3. Blab Sabbath Lathe of Maiden
4. Après Thee Dèclassè
5. Modern Art Bewilders
6. Nightsift
7. Hmmm

LYRICS: Genius.com

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ARTIST DETAILS

CAPITALIZATION: The official way to spell this artist's name is "of Montreal," with the lowercase o. 99.999% of the time, this blog adheres to the wishes of the artist when it comes to capitalization. But I'm sorry, I just can't do it this time around. I don't know why. I've been stuck on it for like a decade at this point. I just cannot make that o lowercase, and never could. I am sorry to report that if you send me a review that says "of Montreal," I will be capitalizing that letter.

PRONOUNS: Barnes has indicated that they use "all pronouns." They are non-binary, so maybe this is a good opportunity to practice your they/them usage in your writing. I also won't edit anything in anyone's review, based on Barnes' officially stated position of accepting all pronouns.

ABOUT: Of Montreal was founded in 1996 in Athens, Georgia. The band is fronted by Kevin Barnes, who is their only consistent member and main composer. Barnes was born in Rocky River, Ohio on May 30, 1974. They moved to Athens, and started the band within the Elephant 6 Collective (members of Neutral Milk Hotel and Elf Power were at one point part of Of Montreal). Barnes' ex-wife, Nina Grøttland, was also a member, during arguably the band's commercial peak (mid-'00s to early-'10s). Currently, Of Montreal consists of Barnes, Clayton Rychlik (guitar and drums), Jojo Glidewell (keys), and Ross Brand (brand), though I'm pretty sure that this week's album was performed and recorded entirely by Barnes. Barnes recently moved to Vermont. The name allegedly references a failed romance between Barnes and a woman "of Montreal."

DISCOGRAPHY: This is Of Montreal's eighteenth of nineteen total LPs. Their most recent is last year's Lady on the Cusp. Their first was Cherry Peel, from all the way back in 1997. Other critical successes include The Gay Parade (1999), Satanic Panic in the Attic (2004), and Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? (2007). Of Montreal has ten EPs as well.

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ADDITIONAL INFO

READING SOME SHIT: a 2022 interview with the blog Since I Left You; a 2024 interview with Last Donut of the Night (the best interview I've ever read on that blog)

WATCHING SOME SHIT: music video for "Blab Sabbath Laithe of Maiden"

RECORD CLUB CONNECTIONS: This is apparently a "COVID album," meaning that it was made during the pandemic and its themes are related to the negative emotions experienced during those months/years. I was trying to see if there were any other albums like this in RC's history. I couldn't think of any off the top of my head. Albums like RTJ4, Fetch the Bolt Cutters, and The Medicine EP were all released at the start of the pandemic, but we only thought they were "about" COVID because society went collectively crazy. And then there are albums like Free Your Mind!, BE, and this is what ____ feels like (Vol. 1-4) that were made during the pandemic, but don't necessarily have any lyrics that speak to COVID. If I forgot something, let me know!

There was an Of Montreal song on the soundtrack album Music from The O.C.: Mix 5, curated no doubt by our former RC captain Seth Cohen. Those mixes are a cornucopia of RC alumni, and I won't type them all here. But notable are: Gorillaz also on Mix 5; Band of Horses covering the New Year on Mix 6.

Of Montreal is the second RC artist to start their name with "Of" after Of Monsters and Men. Barnes performed on a Foxygen track, whose member Jonathan Rado has since produced Imploding the Mirage, Fear of Death, and a whole bunch of other stuff I love. Of Montreal is featured on a Janelle Monáe's album The ArchAndroid (Big Boi of OutKast is another featured artist on there). "Blab Sabbath Laithe of Maiden" is probably a reference to Black Sabbath, but I'd have to listen to the song first to know for sure.

MENTIONS ON THE BLOG: Many mentions of this band over the years. The first was in 2008, when I somewhat sarcastically included the Outback Steakhouse commercial in my list of "biggest sellouts" (I have rescinded my position in the two decades since). The early-to-mid-'10s saw me grow apart from Of Montreal, as seen in three consecutive end-of-year blurbs from 2013, 2014, and 2015. There are plenty of passing mentions of the band in the five years after that (most of them negative), but the May 2020 list of Top Five Of Montreal Songs summarizes my position well. Two years early, Aldhils Aboretum got the Albums That Matter treatment. The band has been featured on two Monday Morning Mixtapes so far. There were four Yearlong Song Challenge selections (Joe Day 21, Joe Day 79, Nate Day 81, Brianna Day 130), plus Nate's quasi-review of an Of Montreal concert on Day 73.

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OTHER ALBUMS TO CHECK OUT

LAST WEEK'S ALBUM: Face Value by Phil Collins, and make sure to check out the reviews if you wanna see what we thought of it!

RC@5: We're relistening to the Record Club album we featured exactly five years ago this week. The RC album for this week in 2020 was Inlet by Hum.

RC f/u: We're attempting to catch up on all the new albums from our esteemed Record Club alumni. Mini-reviews coming next Saturday, this week for Love Heart Cheat Code by Haitus Kaiyote and SABLE, fABLE by Bon Iver.

SHADOW RECORD CLUB: Some weeks, I explore a genre of last week's album by listening to one of that genre's top-rated album. From now on, I'm only going to do this if I can find a genre whose #1-rated album is an album I'm not familiar with. I found one this time around. Last week's Face Value was a jazz pop album. We're listening this week to 恋人へ [For Lovers] by Lamp.

NEXT WEEK'S RC ALBUM: In case you need some extra time with an album to write a review for it, you can get a head start on Sun Coming Down by Ought!

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Happy listening, RC family!
Have a great week!