Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?

Upbeat tempo and bright timber give this a very poppy power-pop feeling. The main sounds are a jangly guitar with a tightly compressed overdriven tone combined with active basslines and synth accents. The vocal is very dominant, quick delivery, nasal sound and really pretty grating sometimes. Some psychedelic Syd-era pink Floyd elements.

'The Past Is a Grotesque Animal' is a small 12-minute masterpiece. It is quite a stylistic departure from the rest of the album and also the undisputed highlight. Nevertheless, this album contains more beautiful tracks, although the inconsistency is also noticeable.

It's a playful and highly experimental album.

I FINALLY, after nearly a year of the user generator, got one of my two submitted albums. This was actually a pick I never would have thought to submit when I put N. 1 in Heaven in running for the first twenty user albums. I had hardly heard of of Montreal, and certainly didn't think I'd find one of my favorite albums on a random album binge day. I've, of course, now gone through all of of Montreal's discography, and while there are some albums of theirs that deserve this spot nearly just as much, or are at least 5/5s, this is the album of theirs I felt deserved the spotlight.

The story the album tells puts it all out there, and really pulls you in from the opening track, with its utterly addictive hooks and great vocals from Kevin Barnes as they pour their current life predicaments into the records inner workings. It's an obviously catchy album, it becomes clear why I like this when I say my favorite band is Sparks, but it's the good, bad, and the ugly this album displays that truly wins me over. Barnes is not the hero, villain, or even bystander of this story, but the overwhelming stress of it all comes to an eruption that is one of the greatest songs of all time, "The Past Is A Grotesque Animal," that seems to be the highlight for even those not loving this album. It's a twelve minute venture through the mindset of a person who is utterly at a loss of what to do, and can only express it via anxiety ridden synths. And the tonal change as Barnes seems to "snap" can be jarring on first listen, but as you come back and see how Kevin copes, it really is perfectly on brand for the band, while still fitting the MO of the album itself. Not to mention there are still some great, catchy pop songs in there. For bonus points you can add their EP "Icons, Abstract Thee" to get another few songs that stand toe-to-toe with the best on the main album, while still attaching itself to the emotions presented here.

I'm glad this album seems to be generally liked on here, that makes me glad, but if you come away from this with disdain in your bones, I don't blame you, but I think this is exactly what I love Sparks for, plus some great lyrical content that makes it the best of the best of pop, rock, and everything in-between, and I think it deserves a spot in the 1001.

This was a good album but i didnt really like it.

Others did before, did after, and did it (usually) better.

All a bit too clever for its own good, until "The Past Is a Grotesque Animal," which I thought was a cover of a song by Wire or Magazine. And then it goes back to being a bit too clever for its own good.

This was one of the only aughts Pitchfork darlings that I never really got into at the time. Shame on me. I must not have given a serious enough listen because this one is pretty great. 4/5

Indie rock/indie pop. It's of the Adventurous variety, meaning that I mostly like it better than the folky and maudlin ones, but it does unfortunately veer over into being annoying a lot of the time.

Barnes is talented, there’s no doubt about that. Even a talented dude sometimes needs a muse to excel beyond even his own abilities, and that’s just what he does on this album. Barnes has a lot of decent albums, but nothing that really grabs me the way this and The Sunlandic Twins do. Nina is certainly the best thing that ever happened to him and his creative spark. Too bad things didn’t work out between them, but it’s not surprising considering what an insufferable narcissist Barnes is. There are some brutal cut-downs on this album, but it’s all so goooood. There’s so much hubris on display here that it would be sickening if it weren’t wrapped up so perfectly in a pop candy wrapper and delivered so convincingly by Georgie Fruit. More things than gender are bent on this record.

I guess I avoided Of Montreal for so long for the crime of falsely implying that they're Canadian. Same with Boards of Canada >:0
Still not as bad as "Big Dick" Manitoba (see: The Dictators) suing actual Canadian Dan Snaith for the right to the name, but still.

Shame on me, I guess- this takes some pretty good 2007 electropop and infuses it with Sparksisms and Bowieisms. The closest thing we have on the original list is probably the Scissor Sisters s/t, but this is a bit wackier and more exploratory.
First impression is that the album is a little worse after "Grotesque Animal", but still keeps up the oddball energy of the 1st half.

Still closer to a 4 than a 3 in my books

HL: "Cato as a Pun", "Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse" (wot are these titles), "The Past is a Grotesque Animal"

November 15, 2025

Rubbish

Interesting but also average at times indie pop album. Can’t decided if I should give it one more listen or not before I give my final rating….