Perfume Genius Review: A Premiere for Hadreas' Folk-Afflicted Universe

ICA, London

Housed in the ICA’s intimate, artful embrace, a modestly magnificent premiere for the art-pop, folk-inflected artist’s latest effort, Glory, scattered with moments of colourful brilliance.

Mike Hadreas doesn’t so much perform as he wilfully graces a room. Cooped within London’s ICA, tonight marks the debut live performance of Glory, Perfume Genius’ seventh studio LP, and while the album may be fresh, its emotional palette remains finely worn. The evening drifts between full-bodied release, awkwardly comical interludes and fragile unveiling; new material jostling against the gnarled spine of a beloved back catalogue.

Opening with ‘It’s a Mirror’, the album’s lead single, Hadreas’ voice glistens and gleams like light refracted off broken glass. There’s a folky lilt embedded in this new inflection, aligning him more with the current likes of Waxahatchee or Aldous Harding than his former glam-glory peers. The jangling guitars pull him somewhere deeply rural, though the lyricism stays laced with his signature interiority (“What do you get from the stretching horizon / That you'd leave me spiraling with no one to hold?”), it’s music which forever begs to reason with the unknown.

‘Clean Heart’ falters slightly; an airy, ethereal track on record, its featherlight “oohs” and “aahs” splinter under the mix tonight. There’s intent in the atmosphere, but not enough conviction in the sound. It’s one of the few moments where perhaps the size of the venue becomes a hindrance rather than a stoic intimacy. In spite of Aldous Harding’s absence tonight, ‘No Front Teeth’ builds into numerously joyous, country-flecked crescendos with impressive panache. Hadreas, ever the contortionist of feeling, physically leans backwards into it, allowing distortion and drums to wash over him like a baptism of noise.

Hadreas’ personal favourite from Glory, ‘Left for Tomorrow’, follows—every note lingers in the air a fraction too long, every pause pregnant with mourning. It’s a song anchored by loss, and Hadreas carries it like a weight, whispering “I carry it on my shoulders / Without her,” as if the act of singing it is what keeps it from swallowing him whole.

The second half pivots into more familiar terrain for the sold-out crowd. ‘Valley’, ‘On the Floor’, and ‘Describe’ all lovingly rendered. ‘Slip Away’ is attempted once, then restarted—an endearingly human moment which ultimately makes the second take all the more explosive. If anything, it’s proof that Hadreas’ best work requires space to expand. One can only imagine how it will feel when he brings this headline set to Camden’s stoic Roundhouse later this year.

‘Otherside’, always a highlight, is gifted here in glorious, strobe-lit slow-motion. As Hadreas bends backwards once again (as if inspired by Neo from The Matrix) into a cloud of feedback and strobes, the performance’s theatricality yields an enticing aspect scattered throughout; mere vignettes into the singer-songwriter's physical expressionism. The newer ‘In a Row’ and ‘Capezio’, while heartfelt, struggle to quite match the resonance of their predecessors; their beauty fleeting, perhaps not yet fully formed.

A breathy, reverent cover of Mazzy Star’s ‘Fade Into You’ sets the stage for one final renowned act: ‘Queen’. The defiant glam anthem is now stripped down slightly, ten years on from its release, yet it loses none of its ferocity. “No family is safe when I sashay,” Hadreas howls, and the crowd cries back—an anthem not just sung, but inhabited.

For all its vulnerability, tonight signalled a quietly bold declaration from Perfume Genius as Hadreas endeavours to expand his art-pop, alt-folk afflicted universe one introspective burst at a time. Glory may signal a sonic shift, but the emotional resonance remains undiluted and impassioned.

7.5/10

Perfume Genius' latest LP, Glory, is out now via Matador Records and can be found below.

Photo is courtesy of Jay Creagh whose work can be found here.