"I spent the winter on the verge of a total nervous breakdown while living in Norway." It sounds like the opening line of some depressing piece of gothic literature.

It is, in fact, the opening line of one tune on Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, the latest album from Athens, Ga., popsters Of Montreal. And in the hands of the one and only Kevin Barnes -- Of Montreal's main man and driving force -- it's nothing short of a richly melodic dance-pop hook. Even better: It's par for the course here.

These dozen tracks -- which supposedly really were written while Barnes battled personal demons in Scandinavia -- are all based around dark tales of seclusion, alienation and depression, set to irresistible grooves and daisy-chained into a candy-coloured dance-floor megamix.

There's the synth-driven power-pop of Suffer for Fashion. The Beatlesque psychedelia of Sink the Seine. The falsetto Prince sex-funk of Faberge Falls for Shuggie and Labyrinthian Pomp. The glammy Bowie wail of She's a Rejector.

Through it all, Barnes never fails to craft magnificent ear candy chock full of '80s synths and spiky new wave guitars and discotastically pumping beatboxes. It's only when you focus on what's coming out of his mouth that you hear the desperation driving the icy robo-chill of Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse and the hypnotic 11-minute centrepiece The Past is a Grotesque Animal.

We don't know if Barnes feels better about his future. But we do know that at present, Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? is strikingly impressive, relentlessly inventive and eternally captivating.

You could easily spend the rest of the winter listening to it. And most of the spring and summer too.

Track Listing:

1. Suffer For Fashion
2. Sink The Seine
3. Cato As A Pun
4. Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse
5. Gronlandic Edit
6. Sentence Of Sorts In Kongsvinger, A
7. Past Is A Grotesque Animal, The
8. Bunny Ain't No Kind Of Rider
9. Faberge Falls For Shuggie
10. Labyrinthian Pomp
11. She's A Rejecter
12. We Were Born The Mutants Again With Leafling