Kevin Barnes is a master shapeshifter—someone who’s been making weird, provocative, frustrating, and fascinating music for so long that audiences have started to take that fact for granted. Most artists contain multitudes, but few possess back catalogs that span both cheeky funk and progressive glam, or that balance character-driven narratives with raw, unfiltered confessionals. His career has seen collaborations ranging from the indie legends of the Elephant 6 collective to global pop icons like Janelle Monáe.
The joy—and perhaps the trepidation for the casual listener—of a new of Montreal album lies in the uncertainty of which version of Barnes you might encounter. While some fans pine for the mid-2000s era of bass-heavy, harmony-stacked earworms like “Gronlandic Edit,” others crave the genre-splicing experiments that have defined his recent output. Following 2020’s compact synth-pop effort UR FUN, the dizzying Freewave Lucifer F<ck F^ck F>ck, and 2024’s Lady on the Cusp, the band’s 20th LP, aethermead, arrives as their most organic and vulnerable work in over a decade.
The project emerged during a period of significant personal evolution for Barnes, following the conclusion of an eight-year relationship and a relocation from Vermont to Brooklyn. By recruiting his live band—drummer Clayton Rychlik, keyboardist Jojo Glidewell, and bassist Ross Brand—for a focused five-day studio session, Barnes achieved a sound that is overtly band-centric and uncluttered.
aethermead functions almost as a companion piece to 2013’s Lousy With Sylvianbriar, leaning heavily into folk-rock and psychedelic textures. Tracks like “Listen to Music and Cry” showcase this shift, layering vocal harmonies over warm, shimmering keys and upfront, phasing guitars. Barnes’ lyrics are strikingly plainspoken, as he admits, “If I have one regret, it’s that I wasn’t more of a friend. I could have done so much better, especially towards the end.”
While the album maintains a consistent, dreamy atmosphere, it is punctuated by moments of intensity. “Take the Form” swerves into a steady, post-punk churn, while the centerpiece “When” masks deep-seated yearning behind a violent, post-disco groove. Ultimately, aethermead stands as a testament to Barnes’ ability to follow his creative instincts, proving that even after twenty albums, his capacity for reinvention remains undiminished.
