Hi, everyone. Lifethony Choicetano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new Perfume Genius album, Glory.

Yes, here we have a new record from the long-time music project of singer-songwriter Mr. Mike Hadreas, who has now been releasing music for about 15 years at this point under the Perfume Genius name. The debut Learning dropped back in 2010. Perfume Genius's sound has evolved by leaps and bounds since then, while still maintaining much of the hushed, intimate, emotionally intense magic that has made Mike's songwriting captivating for the duration of Perfume Genius's run.

And while Mike, as Perfume Genius, has dropped numerous fantastic records at this point, I think his music really reached a peak of lushness and beauty and even accessibility when he began working consistently with producer Blake Mills, specifically around the creation of his incredible record, No Shape, which dropped in 2017, I believe. And since then, Mills has helped Mike pull together some of his most successful and impressive releases to date thus far. Even 2022's Ugly Season, which was a pretty peculiar record for the Perfume Genius project, which was delivered like any other album, but originally conceived as a companion to a dance piece. The songwriting on this record took a very in a different shape as a result, I fear. Admittedly, while I do like it, it is far from my favorite Perfume Genius album.

As a result, I was excited going into this new album to hear something that was just conceived for its own sake. I was also looking forward to hearing Mike and Blake continue to challenge themselves to try out some new sounds and ideas. That certainly seemed to be the forecast with songs like "It's a Mirror" teasing toward the album's release.

One of the most key things about this track being that Mike is embracing more guitar this time around. Oh, guitar, which I know is not the most exciting move in the world for a music project to make. But historically, the fuel for the Perfume, Genius fire has been Mike's very unique voice and piano. To hear a track like "It's a Mirror" that is not only boldly led by guitar, but also a song that has almost a bit of a country flavor to it, it's exciting, especially since the song itself is so good, with its very crisp and angular, acoustic licks and leads, which match very well with Mike's intensified vibrato. The track is also packed with these very fearful reclusive lyrics, where signs from the outside world, both abrasive and normal, seem to be triggering on some level, making mention of a mirror as a terror. In what context? I'm not entirely sure. Is it because you're seeing a reflection of yourself or signs of other things? Either way, there is a real point of fear at the core of this song.

Then there were further signs of change on the next major single from this record, "No Front Teeth", which not only features some beautiful and touching guest vocals from Aldous Harding, but the track also goes full rock mode with a very heavy chorus, a lot of guitar distortion, and some super catchy vocal leads, too.

So, yeah, for me, tracks like these were just really thrilling prospects for this forthcoming album. But after having actually heard the entire thing, I was shocked to be as underwhelmed as I am, as I feel like subsequent songs on the album either felt like they were trying to go back in more of a conventional direction – given how abstract a lot of the material on Ugly Season was – but also we do have a lot of songs on this thing that feel like very abstract mood these is that could have fit into the Ugly Season tracklist. Which of those two forms the material on this record fits into, it really depends on the track.

Either way, things begin to devolve pretty quickly on this tracklist as the following two cuts, instrumentally. I'm talking about "Clean Heart" and "Me and Angel". I feel like I can only describe these tracks as easy listening indie balladry. I mean, for sure they're listenable, but they're not really hitting the intense levels of drama that made past Perfume Genius songs and performances so great. It's odd because the material feels so familiar, too, in the deja vu way. I think these are tracks Mike could have written 10 years ago, but at that point, he would have done it in a way that would have had me weeping. But the approach here, current day, on this album, just comes across as so much more measured this time around.

Songwriting-wise, I do think the following "Left For Tomorrow" is one of the brightest spots on the record. However, the faint drums, gentle bass, and ill-defined embellishments coming from the keys and guitar don't really provide the strongest intro to the track or backbone, generally. I mean, it all does eventually build up into a beautiful wall of sound in the second half. Mike's lyrics do clearly deal in a lot of grief and loss on this song, too. So the emotional substance is most definitely there. And maybe an interesting contrast, too, as the way the instrumental jams on in its final moments feels almost like a point of release and relief, which is pretty gratifying, honestly.

However, the opposite effect is felt for me on the following "Full On", where the pacing is just unbearable, as almost the entirety of the song is taken up by these very slowly and dramatically downstrummed cohrds that just drone on and on and on in a way that make the song feel like it's just lasting forever. Which is a shame because I do feel like the vocal performance is there and the transitions that feature these wonderful layers of woodwind are gorgeous. But I don't know, the groove and instrumental makeup of this track, I feel like for Mike and for Blake, too, just hits as uninspired.

I can commend them a little bit, though, for trying to experiment on the following "Capezio", where Mike does try to take a different vocal approach, really leaning into his falsetto this time around. However, his voice is so unique that I don't know if, for the long periods of time that we hear it on this song, it comes across as all that gratifying. It does wear on me after a bit. But somehow the move on this track, which is even more confusing, is the very nondescript instrumental jam that shifts into in the final leg that just really goes nowhere. Because, yeah, a lack of concrete focus and direction musically on these tracks, it just continues to be an Achilles heel throughout the record.

I felt this was also the case on "Dion", which the backbone of this track, I feel like you're getting the makings of a lot of great Perfume Genius songs with the slow piano arpeggios, Mike's trademark vocal delivery, but the sparse lyrics and very indecisive instrumental embellishments leave the track feeling like, I don't know, just a very vague mood piece, not so much a song. I mean, on some level, it is interesting that the track has an atmosphere to it that reminds me of something that could be in the soundtrack to a Twin Peaks episode. Simultaneously, I do see lyrically that we are getting this continuation of themes of loss, as well as finality, too. But from a musical standpoint, a song standpoint, it's just far from being striking.

That cinematic and soundtrack quality crops up again on the track "In a Row", which actually managed to be one of my favorites on the album. It's just one of the strangest experiences I've had on any Perfume Genius record, not only because of the tense instrumentation that starts the recording off, but lyrically, Mike is pretty much just describing from a first-person perspective, the experience of being, I'm guessing, abducted and locked up in the trunk of a car, just feeling the bumps in the road as you're stuck in there. His choked, otherworldly vocals just lend themselves to this story really well. Then we shift into the storyline with him being in a basement trapped. Eventually, at one point, saying, "This whole thing is so extra, so bizarre." I'll say!

I mean, yeah, not just loss, but there are recurring themes of fear on this record, too. I would say those things really hit a peak on this one.

However, though, the rest of the album goes out with more of a whimper than a bang. There's "Hanging Out", which for sure does have an undeniably emotional performance behind it vocally. But again, instrumentally and structurally, the track doesn't really have a whole lot of dynamics or body to it.

The song "Glory" that closes the entire record out feels once again like a spare motif that could have maybe even been an interlude in the middle of the album. I mean, regardless of what the lyrical and conceptual intent of the track is, from a song standpoint, this has to be the most unmemorable closer of any Perfume Genius album thus far.

But yeah, sadly, this record just didn't really do all that much for me, despite it being one that I was really looking forward to up until this point. Some tracks felt underdeveloped and ill-defined. Others came across more conventional than I guess I would like a Perfume Genius song to typically sound. I'm just at a loss with this one, outside of a handful of tracks that I thought were pretty good, which is why I'm feeling a strong 5 to a light 6 on this one.

Anthony Fantano, Perfume Genius, forever.