The group continues to back last fall's "Skeletal Lamping," its ninth studio set and the follow-up to 2007's "Hissing Fauna, Are You Destroyer?" The group unveils a funkier side on the album, along with frontman Kevin Barnes' musical (and, on stage, physical) transformation into an androgynous, Ziggy Stardust-like character named Georgie Fruit.

"Musically, it is sort of all over the place," Barnes told Pitchfork.com recently. "There really isn't necessarily a sense of continuity there. It's definitely funkier. It's maybe developing off of things like 'Faberge Falls for Shuggie' and 'Labyrinthian Pomp' from 'Hissing Fauna.'

"It's kind of moving things in those directions," he added. "It's something that I find exciting, as it's not something that I've really worked with a lot in the past. It still holds some mystery for me. I really feel there is something I can use in that genre."

Of Montreal, supposedly named after Barnes' broken romance with a woman from the Canadian city, formed in the late '90s as part of the second wave of bands to emerge from the Elephant 6 collective, a notable musical co-op and recording label that spawned Olivia Tremor Control, Neutral Milk Hotel and The Apples in Stereo, among other bands.