On Tuesday, of Montreal, the eclectic rock act led by singer/songwriter Kevin Barnes, released its 13th album, "Aureate Gloom."
Narratives surrounding of Montreal records typically focus on Barnes' ever-shifting influences — from lo-fi vaudeville to psychedelic pop to Afrobeat, and plenty in between — and the 40-year-old frontman's ability to meld it all together.
But as Barnes explained last week on the phone from his home in Athens, Ga., "Aureate Gloom" is an album unlike previous efforts because it was written after the December 2013 dissolution of his 11-year marriage. Songwriting had always been Barnes' most effective form of expression, but now he was using it to come to terms with the failure of a significant relationship.
"It's a way for me to bring things to the surface so I can analyze it with a fresh perspective," Barnes said of songwriting. "So in that way, this record is very much like an open journal."
Explicitly confronting his issues on this album had a cathartic effect on Barnes, but it also thrust people from his personal life into his art, which does not always sit well with others.
So it goes, he said.
"It was a difficult and painful time period," Barnes said. "The other people in my life who I'm writing about get annoyed by the fact that I'm using it as a form of therapy because I'm telling my side of the story, and it makes them feel exposed in a way that's unfair. It's kind of a tricky, slippery slope."
Of Montreal — who headlines Washington's 9:30 Club on Saturday and also includes drummer Clayton Rychlik, bassist Bob Parins, guitarist Bennett Lewis and keyboardist JoJo Glidewell — recorded "Aureate" last September at Texas' Sonic Ranch, the same studio complex where Baltimore's Beach House recorded 2012's "Bloom."
While Barnes wrote lyrics to work out personal issues, he maintained his genre-hopping sensibilities while crafting the sound of "Aureate." He identifies the '70s New York City rock scene — including Patti Smith, the band Television and Richard Hell and the Voidoids — as a major influence, which can be heard strongly on the opener, "Bassem Sabry." Other sources of inspiration are less obvious, but Barnes hears them.
"There are definitely a lot of prog-rock influences on this record that I haven't really explored much in the past," Barnes said. "So there's some King Crimson, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin influences, which might not be extremely apparent to other people, but for me it's like, 'OK, those are the reference points for certain moments on the record.'
"It's doing a lot of genre-hopping," he said, "which I guess is fairly typical of us."
"Aureate" came together quickly, which Barnes said was essential to finishing the product. It captured such a specific period in his life that recording it at any other time would have felt inauthentic.
"I had set up recording dates before I had all of the material written," he said, "because I wanted to force myself to focus and create things within a short period of time so it would stay fresh and feel alive in that sense."
Barnes said he is in a much better place personally than a year ago. The new year gave him a rush of positivity and a goal to leave the past where it belongs.
"I've been able to move forward," Barnes said. "Sometimes you're just swamped and can't see clearly. It's just a fog. But I definitely feel like I'm out of the fog now."
Regardless of the state of his personal life, Barnes said songs come to him at the pace they always have: fast. Although he enjoys touring — this year's itinerary has of Montreal heading across the country, Europe and Asia through August — Barnes said he is happiest writing in the studio.
"I think it was good for me to be completely unsuccessful commercially for so many years because it really helped establish a good work ethic that had nothing to do with the outside world," he said. "There's no real reason for me to stop. I was making music when no one wanted me to make music, and I'll probably continue to make music until I die."