OF MONTREAL - Innocence Reaches 2xLP (180g, Light Blue Vinyl)

Label: Polyvinyl

Innocence Reaches begins with a query. "How do you identify?" coos a robotic voice over a strikingly modern mix of bright synthpop and surging rave. The question too feels very of its time—as outdated ideas about gender and attraction are being overturned—but it's also a fair ask whenever of Montreal debuts an album.

The project's 14th LP follows two full decades of mercurial creative mania: swallowing up '60s psych-pop, Prince-ly funk, and glammy prog in turn; morphing freely between full-band affair and cloistered confessional booth; comprising lyrics both painfully personal and absurdly fantastical; and recently drawing site-specific inspiration from culture capitals like San Francisco or New York City. The thread that runs through it all is Athens, GA's Kevin Barnes, and Innocence Reaches finds them at their most light-hearted in years, working a Parisian stint, Top 40 sounds, and their newfound single status into the kaleidoscopic swirl.

Innocence Reaches features darker moments to be sure—isolation, anger, indifference, and the feeling that, like a Truffaut film, madness lurks just outside the frame—but as Barnes explains, "Epiphany comes from breakdown. If you can stay open and vulnerable, the nebulous becomes transparent. That's one of the magical aspects of writing from personal life."

Sometimes you've gotta intentionally court a little chaos in order to make one of the best, weirdest, brightest, catchiest, and most inventive albums in your already incredible catalog.