Get the latest gossip

Perfume Genius: Glory review – full of energy and biting nuance

Consummate chronicler of 21st-century sensuality Mike Hadreas returns to his indie roots on a convivial seventh album stalked by death and desire

Glory was intentionally written as a group effort and sounds like it, with Hadreas, now based in LA, and his longtime collaborator and partner, the multi-instrumentalist Alan Wyffels, making room for an ensemble including guitarist Meg Duffy, producer Blake Mills and veteran session man Jim Keltner on drums. The subsequent tracks are quieter than the start, many of them pictures of painterly restraint, but these crack players bring all sorts of dappled chiaroscuro performances – pitter-patter beats and twinkly keys on Clean Heart; Left for Tomorrow’s impressionistic, brushed thrumming; Hanging Out’s Low-gone-jazz menace. The star of the show remains Hadreas, of course – a writer, now 43, whose recurrent thematic concerns are often familiar to those who have followed his evolution from pained, confessional piano balladeer to the kind of performer who could declare “No family is safe when I sashay!” on 2014’s maximalist outburst Queen.

Get the Android app