Perfume Genius’ album bound to be a classic

With a crooning and dramatic voice that reverberates like Arcade Fire’s Win Butler's and retains the drama of David Bowie, it is no wonder that Perfume Genius’ Mike Hadreas is the androgynous wunderkind set to take the music world by storm.

Perfume Genius’ Sept. 23 release “Too Bright" is carefully calculated. It is its third studio album under Matador Records -- the same label that has put out work by Yo La Tengo, Interpol and Cat Power. Perfume Genius has made a step forward with this release after 2010’s “Learning” and 2012’s “Put Your Back N 2 It.” While still retaining the slow melodic sensibilities found in “Put Your Back N 2 It,” there is a new fearlessness with this album and all 33 minutes of its eleven-song multi-genre lineup. With “Too Bright,” Perfume Genius explores uncharted narrative territory, delving into complex issues of sexuality and gender in a post-modern America.

Perfume Genius is Ziggy Stardust for the millennial age, complete with electronic soundbites and eyes painted with chrome-colored eyeshadow. As Perfume Genius, Mike Hadreas is fiercely glam. Yet the sound of this album is less like Queen’s “A Night at the Opera” (1975) and more Lou Reed’s “Transformer” (1972). While both tackle issues of sexuality, public conceptions and prejudice, the subtleties that characterize Reed’s album also pervade “Too Bright.” Reserved and aloof, Hadreas's idiosyncrasies work to flawless effect on this album.

Opening track “I Decline” begins slowly, like many songs on “Put Your Back N 2 It.” Yet thought-provoking lyrics like “I can see for miles,” make it difficult to take this album at face value. The song continues: “The same old line / No thanks / I decline / Angel just above the grid / Open, smiling, reach out / That's alright / I decline.” With these simple eight lines, the album is established as a refusal to accept the same old truths as commandments. This mentality, reminiscent of “Rebel Rebel”(1974), is what carries the album as it speaks to greater truths.

A wailing and persistent electronic back tempo combined with the soft lull of a gospel choir, the song “Queen” is anything but conventional. An intentional play on the negative and positive connotations associated with the loaded term in the queer community, “Queen” is both an invocation and a convocation. The steady, mind-numbing beat instills a sense of fear, only to be crushed by the rise of pure, powerful voices in the background.

Later, “No Good” is a somber continuation of the slow pace. Different than “Queen" in its instrumentation and content, “No Good,” examines personal evaluations of body image pre and post-relationship. It is an unflinching and sobering portrait, a reminder that some sides of glam rock are less-than-glam. Meanwhile,"My Body” lurches the listener forward as though he or she is riding shotgun on a rocket ship in "The Jetsons" (1962-1988).

Everything about this album feels like the actualization of a dream, the embodiment of premonition as Perfume Genius falls back into glam rock of the '70s. Simultaneously old and new, Hadreas constructs a mirror-like persona akin to Ziggy Stardust and then shatters it, forcing listeners to readjust their misconceptions about what exactly makes an artist glam rock. The answer? The purposeful attempt to invert listeners' expectations as they are being formed.

“Grid” offers pounding synth with the haunting warbling of Hadreas’s vocals, a literal meshing of old and new that feels as carefully and systematically constructed as the very grid about which Hadreas sings.  “Longpig” has the synth to satisfy the musical element of an '80s arcade game. Plinking repetitive notes highlight exquisite monosyllabic cries by Hadreas.

“I’m a Mother” feels like it is being spoken through time zones -- a track that the ghost in “Poltergeist” (1982) would have recorded if it had access to a studio and sound equipment. Breathy and intentionally uncomfortable, the words are mumbled at best and practically unintelligible. The whole track feels ghoulish and haunting, transformative and powerful. It cultivates a strange magic, more in the vein of Macbeth’s three witches than a sprinkling of fairy dust.

“All Along” rounds out the album, bringing it to a conclusion that is not a conclusion and thus the perfect ending to this convoluted conversation starter. “I need you to listen” is the last line of the song on the final track. It sets the stage for more to come, and the album certainly leaves the listener hungry for more.

“Too Bright” offers the duality requisite of a great studio album -- in this case one that is subtly political and inventive. It is both introverted and in-your-face, unforgiving and personal. Still retaining enough detail to give the listener the whole story, "Too Bright" invites a dialogue, but only after Perfume Genius has asserted its side of the story with brutal and gorgeous honesty.