Perfume Genius’ latest album takes new ‘shape’
Everything singer/songwriter Mike Hadreas does in the guise of Perfume Genius shimmers.
With an angelic, androgynous voice, a set of songs that slides from rubbery electro-dance, glassy piano ballads and gutsy glam rock and lyrics examining his own sexuality and the trauma of homophobia, drug abuse and domestic violence, his is a brutally honest — yet poetic — look at youthful corps d’esprit. Since 2010’s “Learning,” Hadreas has always, by his own account, been angry and pointed fingers. With his dashing, new “No Shape,” however, the eight-years’-sober and involved (with his keyboardist Alan Wyffels, a classically trained pianist he met in group therapy) singer sounds wearier but more triumphant — replacing disgust and anger with an edgy positivity.
