Pitchfork

From their album that won't come out until next year, "Heimdalsgate" takes up the drugs-as-artistic-inspiration vs. drugs-as-personal-ruin dilemma and plays it out with equally conflicted musical gestures. "I'm in a crisis/ I need help/ Come on mood-shift/ Shift back to good again," sings Kevin Barnes over some rocky keyboard; in appropriate zero-to-60 fashion, the song is suddenly riding a synth riff into the "thorny path" Barnes conveniently forgot he created. Submerged in denial, he insists, "Chemicals don't strangle my pen/ Chemicals don't make me sick again"-- which is brilliant, because it's just as much a plea for mercy, i.e. "Chemicals, don't strangle my pen!" "Heimdalsgate" is one of the more breakneck, "old Of Montreal"-styled songs on an otherwise discofunk-lite album, bringing proper attention to itself without overextending its theme.