Grimes’ long-awaited new album is finally here. Claire
Boucher delivers once more. Just looking at the album art, a terrifying
illustration of an entrancing three-eyed girl crying tears of blood, this album
will deliver just as much of a curve-ball as Visions did. The collaborations confirm this, with tracks that
feature the RnB darling Janelle Monae and another one with Taiwanese rapper
Aristophanes. Typically, it’s confusing, it’s eclectic, and it’s 100% Grimes.
Art Angel marks a
definite shift in direction for the Canadian singer. Featuring everything from
dramatically orchestral pieces (laughing without being normal sounds as if it’s
been taken directly from a movie soundtrack) to the Graceland-inspired opening
for Butterfly. One particularly surprising change is the sunshine and
sugar-infused California; it’s how Grimes would sound if Simon Cowell produced
her and she had her own brand of below-average perfume. It’s not the paradox
that we expect with Grimes: predictably original. It’s electro pop, pure and
unashamed. It would be an alright song
had anybody else done it, but for Grimes, it leaves you a little flat.
The whole album is far catchier than Visions; there are discernible verses and choruses, and you’re
unwittingly drawn in so that before you know it, you’re on a tennis court in a
Victorian wedding dress re-enacting the Flesh Without Blood video. Art Angel has an undeniable energy to it
that bounds along from track to track like an excited puppy that bounds off in
the park and drags you along on the lead. Realiti is a particularly stand-out
track, with typically beautiful, dark, twisted and fantastical lyrics like
‘when we were young, we used to live so close to it/And we were scared that you
were beautiful/And when I peered over the edge and seen death, if we are always
the same’.
Seeming non-sequitors suddenly assume an utterly new meaning when
put in the context of this brilliantly ascending track, climbing higher and
higher. In spite of its name, it almost transcends reality.
It’s different, but brilliant. It’s pop-y, but perfect. It’s
great, so it’s definitely Grimes.
