Fans of fantasy are likely to swoon over the bright color and baroque intricacy of The Sundlandic Twins, Of Montreal's seventh and most extravagant album to date. Here, the band strays even further from the lo-fi aesthetic of earlier records, using patchwork melodies and layered vocals to bore out a depth of sound so nuanced and strange, it almost seems like an escape from the real world's plain-flavored problems to a cavernous, synth-laden candyland where people dance with joy and celebrate to their sadness.

Imagine ethereal psychedelic rock spiked with the geometric stutter of early New Wave and the forthright cheerfulness of '70s and '80s British rock, and peppered with a fusillade of staccato click fills and other 21st century frills and effects. Lines like, "We make love like a pair of black wizards," from "The Party's Crashing Us," wedge frontman Kevin Barnes between sassy, androgynous punk and the geek-whimsy of the wandering nymph, making him one of modern-day indie pop's most faceted and likable auteurs.

While tracks like the aforementioned are so catchy they feel almost over-crafted, others are sung with such a soft, understated sadness that it would be hard to argue against their sincerity. The bonus disc's "Art Snob Solutions" finds sweet, sarcastic humor in its disdain of pretension, and in the vulnerable refrain of "The Repudiated Immortals," Barnes quietly sings, "There's no escape / So I won't try / It's only the heaviness that comes / With knowing you will never die." Perhaps The Sunlandic Twins isn't a retreat from the world at all, but an embrace of it, borne from the feeling you get when you try to carry more than you can hold.