Perfume Genius Channels New Primal Power on “Slip Away”

How do you create a sound that’s both skeletal and giant? That dichotomy is at the heart of “Slip Away,” the lead single from Perfume Genius’ upcoming fourth album, No Shape. The song takes the significant sonic upgrade Mike Hadreas made with 2014’s Too Bright and blows it out of the water. And rightfully so: If you’re going to write a fight song about breaking free, never looking back, and letting the haters’ voices slip away (including the ones in your own head), the music needs to have your back.

It more than does here, pulsating with primal power as Hadreas’ innocent croon works through anthemic lines like, “If you never see them coming/You never have to hide.” In other songwriters’ hands, this might skew towards platitude, and indeed, Hadreas has beautifully tackled far thornier matters of identity in the past. But few others would think to take these fundamental truths about self-preservation and violently bang them into our heads via eerie didgeridoo-esque electronics and tribal-metal drum slams and creaking doors and glittering piano racket. There are several moments on No Shape that burst with so much incandescent noise, they’ll make you feel glad just to be alive. “Slip Away” is the first of these opportunities to be, as Hadreas says, “carried by the sound.”

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