Grimes
Visions

"Much Ado About Nothing" is the perfect definition of this album. Hailed by critics and presented by fans as a product of undeniable quality, it resembles more an attempt to stand with one foot in each camp, trying to ingratiate both the casual listener and the one with more refined tastes: the result is a failure in both cases. If taken as a decent pop record, evident shortcomings in the incisiveness of the composition are noted: after repeated listens, there isn't really a track that gets stuck in the listener's head, who continues to struggle with accessibility and occasionally incomprehensible complexity when following the swirling loops of which the tracks are composed. On the other hand, the experimentation and exploration are not particularly bold, and even when they are present in a massive way, they always give the impression of not daring enough, of being able to do more, placed there as mere distractors to cover up the overall emptiness. The end result is the "smoke and mirrors" effect: at first listen, one has the impression of not having fully understood and embraced the essence of the compositions, and the listener ends up blaming their incompetence for the boredom that accompanies the enjoyment of this record. But, after becoming sufficiently familiar with the form, one realizes just how lacking and disorganized the content is, grateful, as it is, to a sound skilled at covering its imperfections, preventing the naive from exclaiming "The emperor has no clothes!" when there was still the chance. It’s a shame, the potential was there. If the entire album resembled more closely that tenuous dream pop of "Genesis", it would have been a completely different story.