Perfume Genius
Too Bright

The angelic androgyny is back, but I couldn't stomach another album of laments.

Don't get me wrong: as you can easily read from my other two reviews of Perfume Genius albums, I've loved his ethereal piano outpourings and his childhood traumas. Yet I find that if an artist demonstrates extraordinary talent, they must constantly evolve without ever recycling themselves (and if they do, they must still keep it at a high level), especially when they are still on their third album.

You can imagine, then, my astonishment upon listening to the two lead singles of "Too Bright": "Queen" on one side and "Grid" on the other. The first is a whispered rock fury with an almost immediate impact, the second a psychobilly sketch akin to the "Ghost Riders" era that immediately leaves you stunned.

The greatness of "Too Bright" is already in its premises: each piece is a standalone soul, a genre to be explored. Yet the eleven songs are skillfully interconnected, without ever detonating the album's spirit: a heterogeneous and homogeneous work at the same time. Where an eighties synth-pop romp titled "Longpig" manages to marry well, by contrast, with the piano drama (prepare the tissues) of "No Good". An album, whose tracklist, does not shy away from offering the jazzy beat of "Fool" a few minutes before "Don't Let Them In", a sort of classical dance recital by a girl who overdid it on Xanax.

The soul and mood have remained unchanged (pre-adolescent depression, carnal traumas, blood spilled on family albums, massacre of all innocence), but the body has changed: it is more adult and unafraid to act, to take revenge, to hit hard.

And, in this regard, the two peaks of the album cannot go unmentioned: "My Body" – a haunting super dark and super sexy fusion between Elvis Presley and early Xiu Xiu – and "I'm A Mother", namely the chilling sound of a man dying by drowning saved by a sudden light. And off to Eden with the closure entrusted to the ascent to paradise with the title track and the delicate "All Along".

An album that confirms and strengthens the songwriting abilities of this sad and troubled boy; a very brief watercolor (only 33 minutes) that enchants, wounds, makes you cry and, at times, even makes you dance.

While waiting for the next portal (perhaps a definitive descent into the underworld), I torture myself on the "repeat" button.