Grimes' new album is here and, just like 2012's Visions, is making waves. Grimes is the nom-de-music of Montreal-based weirdo pop singer-songwriter and producer Clair Boucher. This is her fourth album, but really it feels like her sophomore effort, because Visions was just that monumental in establishing her as a musical presence. While its album art and album title looked it belonged to your local grindcore band, Visions sported some of the better pop music of 2012, putting Grimes' trademark freaky, reverb-heavy, stripped-back brand of electropop on the map.
While I do think Visions was at least a litttttle bit inflated by hype, it's certain that this new-and-improved record, Art Angels, would not exist without it. If Visions had not done so well, we might not be hearing from Grimes at all anymore. Especially after we saw Grimes scrap what was reportedly an album's worth of songs in the wake of negative reception to 2014 single "Go" (although Claire insists she was simply narrowing down the tracklist). Some may scoff at an artist for being so neurotic, but to me it definitely paid off.
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| Well... she certainly knows how to pick eye-grabbing artwork. |
Art Angels feels concise (for a Grimes record), immediate, and triumphant, like this is the record she's been trying to show the world. Claire sounds like she's having the time of her life on every song on the album, whether she's wailing like a banshee on "SCREAM" or contentedly proclaiming in pop simplicity, "I'm high on adrenaline, that's right, that's right" on "Artangels." Through the 14 tracks and 49 minutes of this LP, Grimes creates her own little futuristic world-city of music, somewhere in the cyberspace between Tokyo and New York, where the lights are bright, language is no barrier, and robots and humans dance 'til their bones break in freaky, cyber dance clubs.
To some, the overt feel-good pop vibes of Grimes' world may seem banal. But just when the LP seems to be slowing into another lookalike club jam, Grimes' incredible charisma comes to the rescue. She programs in a beat of glitches on the otherwise tame "California" that keeps the tune feeling fresh. On "Venus Fly," just after the chorus has worn out its welcome, she breaks things down into a veritable rave. And on the absolute banger "Kill V. Maim," Grimes hops vocal techniques like she's Mike Patton or something, doing cheerleader chants, desu-style anime squeals, and guttural screams.
Her charisma isn't enough to cover up the blandness of a few tracks on the album, like "Realiti" and "Belly of the Beat"; actually, more accurately, these songs suffer because Grimes is, for whatever reason, holding back her infectious personality. If she let it go rampant on every song on the album, like it does on "Kill V. Maim," Art Angels would be in my top 5 albums of the year. As it stands though, I have to patiently listen through the duller rocks until I get to the next gem that sparkles.
Overall, Grimes did not disappoint on this album and if nothing else showed the world that her originality and musical fearlessness were not just a stunt for critics to clap at in 2012 but a vibrant part of her very being.
| OVERALL SCORE: 8.2 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Grimes – Art Angels | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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