Of Montreal - Innocence Reaches, review: 'adroitly channels Ziggy Stardust’ | London Evening Standard

Of Montreal - Innocence Reaches, review: 'adroitly channels Ziggy Stardust’Bowie himself might have applauded Kevin Barnes’ latest reinventionSmart electronic pop: Kevin Barnes happily loses himself in the Seventies on Innocence ReachesKelli McGuire

Review at a glance

Like a gender-bending Jack White, Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes has spent the last two decades immersed in pop’s past.

Of Montreal - Innocence Reaches

Ranging from psychedelia to glam and progressive rock, Barnes is a flamboyant frontman from another era. His absence from the Bowie Proms tribute was baffling, especially as his 14th album so adroitly channels Ziggy Stardust on the sprawling Chaos Arpeggiating.

Barnes is still happily losing himself in the Seventies, though opening track Let’s Relate signals a move into smart electronic pop — a rare foray into musical modernity for Of Montreal.

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There are hints of LCD Soundsystem on the witty digital funk of It’s Different For Girls, while Ambassador Bridge has the silky style of Daft Punk and the melancholy undertow of a Pet Shop Boys ballad.

It’s a reinvention that Bowie himself might have applauded.

(Polyvinyl)