Andrew Veeder on October 15th, 2014

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The music of Perfume Genius has always been raw, often haunting and emotional, with Mike Hadreas’s lyrics wrapping you with a sense of intimacy. His 2012 sophomore album “Put Your Back N 2 It” was full of delicate and sparse piano ballads tackling topics like drug addiction, violence and living as a gay man, orchestrated in a simplicity that was both dark and beautiful. On his new album “Too Bright” via Matador Records, he has dramatically expanded his palette, enlisting the help of Portishead’s Adrian Utley and pushing his sound to new spaces. The first single “Queen” sets the tone with choral harmonies, distorted bass and hypnotic chimes; “Fool” rides a synth-and-snap groove out before fading out and in with a swelling falsetto crescendo; and “Longpig” bounces like a new wave gem. The second single, “Grid,” is the most abrasive and chaotic track in his oeuvre, pulsing with a menacing synth and punctuated with unnerving howls as Hadreas’ vocals float above the madness. And its video, directed by Charlotte Rutherford, is just as frenzied, with intense imagery of Hadreas dancing with his demons in the form of a silver-bodied gang who bloody and manhandle him before he’s marched into a dreamlike dinner party as the centerpiece.

||| Live: Perfume Genius plays the Roxy on Sunday with Matteah Baim.

||| Previously: “Learning”

Photo by Angel Ceballos