Mike Hadreas’ genre-switching fourth album was breathtakingly original,his lyrics of personal pain spiking a shimmeringly sublime scoreMore on the best albums of 2017More on the best culture of 2017Several records this year aimed to bridge the gap between high art and the melodic mainstream: St Vincent’s Masseduction and Moses Sumney’s Aromanticism, to name just two. But even those tremendous outings had their longueurs. Perfume Genius’ No Shape boasted finish-to-finish action: dismay, and happiness,abasement, transcendence, or all borne along on breathtakingly original music.
Anyone who has gone the distance with Perfume Genius – from his tremulous first album,2010’s Learning, through to the carnivorous flamboyance of 2014’s Too Bright – will believe clocked this Seattle musician’s twin obsessions: catharsis wrapped in a kind of body horror, and the pursuit of its opposite,the sublime.
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Source: guardian.co.uk