“Lousy (with Syvianbriar) is bracing. It’s arguably the best—not to mention the funniest, prickliest, most purple, and least fastidious of Montreal album”
Pitchfork
Defining of Montreal is impossible. There are too many perspectives to consider, angles to explore, layers to uncover. Just when you think you have a concept of what kind of creature they are, they transform into something unexpected and new. As a result, each album holds the opportunity for re-discovery, re-immersion, re-appreciation. On new album ‘Lousy with Sylvianbriar’, this paradigm holds true once more. The record was created with a new song writing approach, a different recording method, and a fresh group of musicians.
With no computer tricks to fall back on, the band — Kevin Barnes (guitars,bass,vocals), Rebecca Cash (vocals), Clayton Rychlik (drums,vocals), Jojo Glidewell (keys), Bob Parins (pedal steel,bass), and Bennet Lewis (guitars,mandolin) — could only get out of the recordings what they put into them. Most of the tracks were recorded live with the band in the same room together. They worked quickly, with the band members composing their parts on the fly and with little second guessing. The album was recorded in just three weeks.
Like the classic albums that inspired it, this is an album to be explored, to be lived with, to be listened to in happiness and in darkness, to be dissolved into. To be played very loudly at parties and with eyes closed, in headphones, alone. It should become dog-eared and dirty with use and it should lessen the blow of our enemies, in all their forms.
