Review: Perfume Genius – Ugly Season

Coming off his recent critically acclaimed album, many had high expectations for Michael Hadreas’s next album, and here it is: Ugly Season. This was not at all the work I expected him to push out next; it has moved me in a way no project has since Promises by Floating Points, yet it is far more nuanced and dynamic in its musicality and overall experiential impact. There’s nothing really like this record, yet I know I want to put it up on the highest echelon with artists/groups like Swans, Daughters, Phil Elvrum, Lingua Ignota, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. There’s something about this album that makes it an instant classic in the minds of all music nerds alike. Track-by-track analysis:

Just A Room – A truly powerful and ever-meticulous intro, this track plunges the listener straight into an ocean of all-embracing organs and drones, leading to a quiet and thoughtful tinkering of plucked strings and seemingly accidental key presses as the strings lift the listener into what is about to be a life-changing experience. The sparse six lines of spoken word are all that is present, downplaying the immense gravity of Ugly Season the album to “just a room,” which is “flat and static,” yet it is precisely “where I’m taking you.”

Herem – The track that truly lured me into this project on my first listen, the immediate burst of countless woodwinds and high-pitched soaring vocals (beautifully utilized as instruments almost) is the best any instrumental has hooked me into its presence so hastily. Close to halfway through, the vibe changes to a key-wind instrument drone with subtler soaring vocals in the background with sudden organ blasts, as well. With one and a half minutes left, the track transitions to these spacey blips of noise in a much more electronic vibe yet keeping it minimal. Hadreas references a bunch of names, which I presume to be allusions (perhaps religious), to describe them differently yet seemingly to sew them together in a narrative that doesn’t paint a picture of where the listener is, but paints subtle pictorial moments in a teasing but ominously determined and necessary way.

Teeth – The strong instrumentals never really stop as this song uses repeating chimes, strings, and even a saxophone to make the listener feel like they’re ascending into the sky, but it’s a very soft and dreamy experience as one brushes through the leaves and flowers. The ascension becomes more and more intense until a climax, where it then returns to the beginning. Now, the protagonist of the work seems to be having the pictorial moments, repeatedly asking “what images return to me?,” interpolated with imagery of nature, beauty, but also death.

Pop Song – As the name maybe suggests, this is the most conventionally structured and sung track as it was released back in 2019. However, it would be an understatement to say that it fits perfectly and seamlessly with the other tracks. It really makes one wonder if Hadreas is making his projects in order or not, but it is clear that this project was meant to be exactly the way it is in terms of how intentional everything feels. This Pop Song was not inserted just because it fits, it was made for this album. The atmosphere is the euphoric epicenter of the project; it is heavenly, elegant, extravagant… The listener is surrounded by glistening electronic strings, traditional strings, shaking percussion, synthesizers, bass, and non-lyric vocals by the end of the experience, each part being propelled by the absolutely ear-grabbing singing wails or shrills almost. Also, the lyrics are a true standalone poem, again. My interpretation of it is that of commentary on how humans deal with emotional and physical suffering/trauma through a metaphor of harvesting the pit of a fruit to be buried and become new life. The harvesting of the pit from the flesh is the process of suffering and finding meaning and learning from the experience so that the burying of it (acceptance) leads to a new life (new sensibilities and knowledge moving forward).

Scherzo – Exactly as the title says, this instrumental track is a scherzo, which is a vigorous, light, or playful composition. Here, it is mainly piano with some other arrays of plucked strings accompanying this almost improvisational piano. The song does feel pretty playful, but also jumpy in an anxious way, making the listener feel pretty on-edge about what’s to come next.

Ugly Season – To start the second half of the album, Hadreas chooses a slightly reggae-influenced instrumental/instrument that surprisingly doesn’t distract from the atmospheric theme of the project. It’s awfully incredible how he can make almost any instrument into the musical vision he desires because it is so strong. An electric guitar maneuvers through the instrumental, as well, with some nice solo-improv moments. The ominously whisper-sung vocals offer the most lyrics on a song so far, emphasizing what they’re saying, even with a more conventionally structured songwriting style. On Ugly Season, Hadreas really subverts the expectations of his usual commentary on sexuality, yet it still adds on to it. There’s no clear message about beauty standards or the questioning of aesthetics here, but he embraces the concept of ugly, disgusting, filthy emblems with fairly sexual ones, calling this phenomenon “ugly season” and that he loves it (could be either talking about him or the protagonist of the album).

Eye in the Wall – Another previously released track in 2019, this song starts slowly with some winding guitars and bass which sees the vocals find a three-word chorus “give it up,” pushing the listener into these rushing drums and other percussion. This goes on in a verse-chorus structure and finishes before the track is even halfway through, leading the listener to very syncopated spacey noise effects that has some indecipherable whispering throughout (I kind of hear things like “take me” and “nothing”). I’d describe this part as something one would film score for a scene where someone goes through a time-travel portal. By ¾ of the way in, the instrumental is mainly dominated by a myriad of percussion with occasional moving pitches and a tone-changing bass drone. The lyrics from verse 1 and 2 are reused in 3 and 4 (a common feature of his writing), focusing on feelings of giving up restraint to allow one to enjoy themselves truly.

Photograph – With the second most text in a song for this album, Photograph begins with production that portrays a mysterious vibe, but then it becomes a great juxtaposition of lo-fi and hi-fi instruments that culminate in this beautiful environment similar to that of Teeth. The subtle saxophone helps tremendously along with the flat-out unique guitar strums and vocal inflections. The lyrics constitute two simple verses that describe a dead man and a former performer (perhaps musical but not certain) as people the protagonist was meant to be with. It’s very ambiguous but the vocal delivery of these lyrics makes it so narrativized and injected with emotion, that one really wonders what these people meant to the singer.

Hellbent – This dark, grimy, industrial masterpiece is the highlight of the album to me, and it is not at all an easy listen. It feels like it’s straight out of YWGWYW by Daughters but even more slow-paced. It starts with these dark drones which are then met with a whining post-punk/rock guitar and then a rushed delivery of the first verse. The chorus really explodes with more musicality as instruments actually playing melodies chime in momentarily. Verse 2 is belched out as if Hadreas is possessed but at the same time fighting it, which is followed by a silence with just the drone and some ghost-like distant shrieks. An extremely beautiful mess, the rest of the cut continues with a multitude of instruments as the main guitar goes on with oscillating riffs, and the drums become more and more overwhelming until the listener’s mind is filled with the best industrial/noise-rock composition I’ve heard since I started this blog. Despite the fact that it’s the most standout song, he actually uses the most conventional lyrics: a truly interesting dichotomy. He talks about a lover mentioned in a past album in a straightforward storytelling way, that he is rushing to that lover to get money in this state of anxious chaos. He seems to be bleeding from an arm cut with a lost phone and speeding on the highway towards this lover Jason. The musical execution really makes it a soul-crushing experience, though.

Cenote – Truly the calmest ending you could ask for from such an album, but it is as perfect a conclusion as it can get. It’s just soft improvisational piano playing; it almost feels like Hadreas experimenting to find a new melody. However, atmospheric help suddenly comes in with high-pitched drones and light soaring vocals that the listener is used to by now, gradually adding long, low string notes and other lifting notes from vague electronically-produced additions. It leads out with a soft piano riff, putting the listener to calm after taking them through an extraordinary experience.

A truly satisfying listen, I just feel lucky to have experienced this instant classic immediately after its release. Ugly Season is the embodiment of everything I love about music: a perfect curation and blend of experimentation, musicality, thematic execution, and a genuine effort on the cutting edge of its medium of art. The experience the listener is dragged into upon the first seconds of the intro track never gives even a chance to disappoint; the project quickly intrigues and then builds this world out of extremely articulate lyricism combined with a full mastery of multi-instrumentalism by Blake Mills. Every song is unique and exciting, every note is effortlessly complementary, and every word is utilized to its full meaning. I read this album as an awe-inspiring metaphor about suffering, exploration, and the questioning of aesthetic beauty itself through nature, which is exemplified by the innumerable sounds and lyrical imagery infused into these 10 records, i.e., nature being the universal marker and source of aesthetic beauty from which we impose our interpretations on it to develop a particularly strange universality of beauty (contrasting the ugly). Hadreas fully embraces the ugly as a concept and phenomenon, setting up presentations of ugly verbs with beautiful nouns and vice versa, that is, in the most abrasive and visceral way possible. This is not only just another great work by Hadreas, but his best in his career and one of the best albums I’ve ever listened to. It’s like experiencing an avant-garde opera without the visuals, but the intense musical delivery evokes the visuals for you.

Favorite Tracks: Herem, Pop Song, Ugly Season, and Hellbent.

Least Favorites: N/A

Score: 9.7