Twenty years after their formation, Of Montreal have seemingly hit a late-career zenith with this, their new single, and their forthcoming album Innocence Reaches, due in August.
Over a sparkling electropop backing vaguely reminiscent of Blur’s game changing ‘Girls And Boys‘, frontman Kevin Barnes sings astute, often confrontational lyrics like “Though some women are demons, all of them are gods/Though some demons are women/For every one psycho bitch/There’s 10,000 aggro pricks.” It’s an utterly compelling listen, and don’t miss the video below, either, featuring Barnes in drag at a vibrant gender-bending dance party. It all looks terrific fun.
Barnes himself describes the song thus: “The ‘girls’ I’m singing about in the song aren’t exclusively of the biologically female variety. It’s more of a paean to all the wild-hearted counter culture groups of our species. In a way, I feel like most of us transition back and forth, psychologically, between female and male and that sexual identity is a fluid concept.”
For the best part of two decades, Of Montreal have had to put up with being considered the “nearly men” of Athens, Georgia, while the city’s shining beacons of the music world (I’m sure I don’t really have to name them, do I?) have been festooned with accolades year in, year out. With ‘It’s Different For Girls’ though, this may be the moment where they are finally acknowledged as one of the big boys.
Innocence Reaches is released on Polyvinyl on 12th August 2016. ‘It’s Different For Girls’ is out now.
