Album Review: Perfume Genius, Ugly Season

Perfume Genius’s 2020 album, Set My Heart On Fire Immediately was an early lockdown treat – an off-beam pop odyssey to keep us sane as the walls closed in. The follow-up is something else entirely, with Mike Hadreas repurposing the score he wrote for the 2019 dance piece The Sun Still Burns Here, on which he worked with choreographer Kate Wallich.

Where Set My Heart On Fire was splashed in melody, Ugly Season lives up to its name by being wilfully discordant. Yet in that darkness there lies a twisted beauty – ‘Pop Song’ surfs on buzzsaw synths, while ‘Hellbent’ features droning guitars that, amid the tumult, yield a sort of skewed loveliness. This is a record that pulsates with shadows. But in so doing, it throws into sharp relief the light at its heart.

Listen: ‘Hellbent’
8/10

Out now via Matador.