Aldhils Arboretum
Of Montreal return to their very beginnings on their oddly named fifth album,Aldhils Arboretum, abandoning all pretensions of constructing another Byzantine concept album as they did on their past three outings. As a result the quintet have made a stronger, more appealing record by simplifying their aesthetic--sounding much like they did on their 1997 debut,Cherry Peel--and creating 14 discrete, unrelated tableaus about some of the idiosyncratic characters from their native Athens, Georgia. Borrowing freely from the band's own autobiography, spiritual leader and main songwriter Kevin Barnes constructs a skewed pastoral scene in "Isn't It Nice" (about an actual exodus the band made to Clarke Country, Georgia, where four of the five members set up housekeeping in a community peopled with crotchety old women, inebriated neighbors, and suicidal deer), proving he can conjure rural characters just as compelling as the urban warriorsLou Reeddescribed in "Walk on the Wild Side." Barnes blithely pens a story of a woman's love for her dog on "Natalie and Effie in the Park," only to turn around and write a paean to sleep, "An Ode to the Nocturnal Muse," in which he professes love for his bed, his pillow, and the dream state. However, snuggled underneath those cozy covers is a darker reality that slithers into your consciousness on the dark wings of an anxious organ fill, letting you know that the song--and the entire album, for that matter--is more Southern gothic than Southern comfort.--Jaan Uhelszki