Perfume Genius – ‘Glory’ album review: the hot streak continues
THE SKINNY: Perfume Genius has always been a project centred on growth in a multitude of ways. While some tracks are impactful upon first listen, others take time to embed themselves within you, only revealing more upon future listens. At the same time, there was a sparseness to songwriter Mike Hadreas’ earliest records that, with time, began to dissipate as the songs became more textured and lavish. Finally, the young man who seemed so timid and fragile in earlier records has matured and become a defiant character who is unafraid of displaying a full range of emotions.
This is no critique of Learning, Hadreas’ first album as Perfume Genius, but for a good while after the debut release, things would only continue to improve exponentially with each subsequent album. This all came to a halt with Ugly Season, an album that was ambitious in its concept but alienating in the way it presented its ideas. Once again, it’s still a remarkable record, but one that took the project in a daring direction that was bound to be divisive rather than continuing the trend of fine-tuning what was already there.
Glory sees a return to a more conventional mode of Hadreas’ songcraft. Instead of writing for ballet, he has returned to writing concise character studies and vignettes of real life, all filtered through his own lens of queerness. While described by Hadreas as bold and ‘muscular’, the record still has its moments of tenderness, though he embraces it rather than displaying a shyness about it as on some previous albums.
As always, there’s an underlying darkness that matches the almost euphoric moments. Not every song is shrouded in joy, and there are some moments of reflection upon harrowing moments that Hadreas illustrates in an uncanny, half-remembered fashion. It’s not as though he’s deliberately trying to obfuscate the true meanings, but he’s allowing the narratives to blend into the more surreal moments so that things begin to feel like they’re being plucked from a hazy memory.
The addition of a full band on the record has helped Hadreas bolster his sound further and establish yet another new way to approach things, and with trusted companions Blake Mills on production and life partner Alan Wyffels as a co-writer by his side, things feel sturdier than ever. There may be occasional moments where Hadreas reflects on his artistic past, but with each album, there’s a renewed eye for where things need to go, and in terms of following his own personal goals with each record, he hasn’t failed once.
For fans of: Living in the present moment, soaking up all of the most minute details of your surroundings and allowing yourself to feel something.
A concluding comment from a sommelier: “Not even our finest cabernets mature this well.”
Glory track by track:
Release Date: March 28th | Producer: Blake Mills | Label: Matador
‘It’s A Mirror’: The album’s lead single begins with a lilting acoustic riff underpinned by some muted strums of electric guitar. The song explodes around halfway through as it appears to promise, bringing the ‘muscular’ sound that Hadreas promised from Glory but without venturing into anything that feels like a true escape from his previous work. [4/5]
‘No Front Teeth’: The next track offers a similar pattern to ‘It’s A Mirror’ in that it begins gently enough before it dramatically bursts into perhaps the heaviest rock song ever recorded under the Perfume Genius name. With the ever-morphing vocal style of Aldous Harding backing up Hadreas’ tender vocal inflections, this track feels like a defiant statement of intent that cements the constant growth of the artist. [5/5]
‘Clean Heart’: Where the muscularity was on display on the two previous singles, ‘Clean Heart’ reverts back to the dreaminess of No Shape and Set My Heart on Fire Immediately, with twinkling glockenspiels adding decoration to an echoey bassline. There are some booming toms that manage to seep through at moments, but the soft and angelic chorus in the background is there to hold it back from being too brash. [3.5/5]
‘Me & Angel’: Here we’re harking back to the earliest years of the project, where skeletal piano-led balladry takes centre-stage. The lyrics allude to spirituality and devoting your life to someone – a beautiful sentiment that Hadreas has always done exquisitely. [4/5]
‘Left For Tomorrow’: There’s almost a hollowness in every element of the song – the performers feel like they’re all intimately close to you but the room they’re in is a vast expanse where sounds continue to bounce off each other to create this sense of celestial splendour. [4/5]
‘Full On’: A song seemingly about running to comfort someone that is unable to show the same tenderness in return, the centrepiece of the record feels like a true ascent into the heavens, and all of the hallmark flourishes that Hadreas, Mills and Wyffels have created together in the past coalesce gorgeously once again. [4/5]
‘Capezio’: Seemingly a callback to an earlier song, ‘Jason’, ‘Capezio’ is perhaps a little too muted to have the desired sultry effect it seems to want to convey. It’s still good, but moves past in the middle of the album without any real consequence. [3/5]
‘Dion’: We’re returning to reverential territory for ‘Dion’, as Hadreas introduces another character to paint a portrait of. On the surface of things, not a huge amount of things are happening in the song, but there are so many subtle shifts and surprises in the arrangements that pique the interest when things feel like they’re almost spacing out too much. [4/5]
‘In a Row’: This is perhaps the closest we get to the abstract ballet of Ugly Season, with its throbbing rhythm a constant throughout the song and some chaotic instrumentation gradually working its way in [4/5]
‘Hanging Out’: In terms of the tune, this has the same air of mystery about it as a No Shape album cut, but as always, what’s a Perfume Genius album without any sense of growth or ambition to move on. The fortitude from earlier in the album comes through for one last party, although it’s dancing with the more toned-down beautiful aspects of the album to create a wondrous spectacle. [5/5]
‘Glory’: A short and sombre closer that caps off another huge triumph for Perfume Genius. ‘Hanging Out’ feels like the real closer, and this is its epilogue. [3.5/5]
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