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

Death stalks the seventh studio album by feted US singer-songwriter Perfume Genius, nom de plume of Mike Hadreas – but stealthily, not so you’d recognise its presence at first. Here are 11 tracks that sound very much alive – songs that hum with universal emotion and queer carnality, everyday anxieties and high drama, from an artist whose struggles have formed the basis of a compelling body of work. Glory adds heft to it.

Vivid with guitars, the album’s twin opening tracks bring the peripatetic Hadreas crashing back to indie rock after long spells in art pop, and orchestral and electronic environs. His last album, the dub-inflected Ugly Season (2022), originally accompanied a 2019 dance piece.