Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?
review by Collin Wicker
Hissing Fauna is a masterpiece, a sparkling gem of the indie world, spawned from holy ground, Athens, GA. Truthfully, I’ve never heard another album like it, part Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band, part Bowie, with dance undertones and indie flair. Most of the songs on Hissing Fauna were written and recorded by lead singer, and band visionary, Kevin Barnes. Barnes’ vocal range is amazing. He goes from soaring falsettos, to beautiful harmonies, to sing along lyrics without batting an eye. The instrumentation and the arrangements are fabulous too. Multiple instruments work together to create each song. There are melodic xylophones, screeching guitars, rhythmic guitars, ghostly synthesizers, grooving baselines, thigh slapping drum lines, and much more. Hissing Fauna is not your typical album consisting of 10 to 12 songs created separately and thrown together on a disc, but is a well planned, thought out, masterwork crafted by a talent whose time has certainly come. [http://www.myspace.com/ofmontreal] [http://www.polyvinylrecords.com]
– CW