‘Ugly Season’ Review: Perfume Genius Gets Weirder

metroweekly.com:

Perfume Genius, has proven to be an expert in walking that fine line. He has crafted a sound that is all his own, and although his experimental edge has always been there, it is never weird for its own sake.If it can be said to be weird, it is because its ideas — queerness, the interplay of sexual and sensual desire, and the inherent strangeness of inhabiting a frail body made of meat — tend to provoke discomfort and get relegated into that general category of weirdness.Hadreas’ sixth studio album, Ugly Season, (★★★☆☆) take things to a new level with a singularly challenging sound.

The record is not a complete departure, but if Set My Heart On Fire Immediately succeeded by marrying a resonant and infectious pop sensibility with his flair for artful experimentation, Ugly Season strips away any pretenses to mass appeal and dares a listener to follow along.That’s not to say that there is no discernible structure here — Hadreas eases into the more difficult content, even warning us in voiceover on the album opener, “no pattern, no bloom/where I’m taking you.”Ugly Season eventually builds to maximalism, but takes its time getting there.

But even the more outwardly subtle approach he takes on the early part of the album is still complex and layered, as can be seen in the dreamy, slowly-unfolding “Teeth” and the minimal-yet-frantic piano-forward track “Scherzo.”The last friendly moment before things begin to sound unmoored and almost improvisational comes in the form of “Pop Song,” whose beat and conventional structure deliver what the label promises but whose title seems to almost mock its relative friendliness.Things progress in a similar fashion, building toward “Hellbent,” a captivatingly grim and chaotic track with humming.