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May 10, 2017On 2014’s Too Bright, Hadreas expressed liberationist sentiments, played with gender and made his queerness confrontational. This time, those themes are felt more heavily in the way he channels familiar riffs, structures and themes into something so singular, unsettling and beautiful.
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May 4, 2017Mike Hadreas takes a scalpel to the inner-workings of his creative brain, and the love that feeds it. An absolutely flooring record from once-in-a-generation talent.
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May 3, 2017No Shape steps out as Hadreas’ brightest and most lavish record to date but, as in all the best fairy tales, it’s haunted by as many ghosts as it is populated by princes.
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May 5, 2017Hadreas let a little light in, upped the production values and expanded his sonic repertoire, creating a near-masterpiece of hair-raising emotional evocation.
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May 3, 2017With strident chords, spiralling melodies, and a shiver inducing delivery, No Shape might spend a lot of its time searching, but in being open about that the record presents Perfume Genius at his most realised.
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May 5, 2017Audacious and spectacular high stakes.
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May 10, 2017More often than not, however, this album brings you into its world and convinces you that love really is redemptive, that it can hold back the hounds at the gate.
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May 5, 2017It has moments of populist ambition (the soaring chorus of the lead single, “Slip Away,” for example) and self-consciously arty experimentation (“Choir”), and it’s a credit to Hadreas and producer Blake Mills that its 13 tracks sound as seamless and cohesive as they do.
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May 3, 2017One of the greatest accomplishments of No Shape is how it provides a lush, seemingly endless musical playground in which Hadreas’ stunning, one-of-a-kind voice can push past any limits and shine in new and unusual ways.
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May 31, 2017Perhaps his most assured and confident album.
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May 19, 2017These pop-forward moments are frontloaded on No Shape, extravagant and baroque. The soaring production value is not accompanied by conceptual upending or reinvention, but rather extends into a grand sort of sequel vision of Perfume Genius.
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May 17, 2017An expertly crafted experimental pop album that at various points suggests the work of singer Kate Bush, the effects-drenched work of the Cocteau Twins and British art-rock band Talk Talk--all musicians who mix a certain sonic delicacy with studio heavy production--No Shape exudes confidence and vulnerability in equal measures.
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May 16, 2017Though No Shape shows how much his music has expanded since the Learning days, it also proves he hasn't lost any of his ability to connect with listeners. Instead, it reveals him as a sonic adventurer and truth teller who's made some of his most compulsively listenable music.
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May 16, 2017No Shape is awkward, full of weird sounds that shouldn’t fit together but do.
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Q MagazineMay 9, 2017His fourth LP feels like a statement of defiance, strength and unabashed beauty. [Jul 2017, p.112]
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May 9, 2017With such a range of musical stylings on one record, No Shape occasionally sounds more like a collection of songs than a unified album, at times this can be a bit stifling to the listener. ... But these are minor flaws in a record with many a moment of gorgeousness.
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May 9, 2017Here, we have Hadreas’s desire to transcend his body and self--the no shape of the title--and glorious, inventive, shape-shifting music to match.
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May 5, 2017No Shape is Hadreas’ longest album yet, and even moreso than its predecessor, it feels like a complete conceptual project. Taken as a whole, it’s a real thicket, imbued with the innocence and horror of fairy tale.
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May 5, 2017While there are tracks on No Shape that bow in that direction. But these nips and tucks to the Perfume Genius sound serve a common goal: showcasing Hadreas, who shines bright like a diamond throughout.
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May 4, 2017If No Shape is a less straightforward pop album than it first appears, then something similar is true of the lyrics. It certainly maps out a more positive emotional territory than its predecessors.
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May 3, 2017With Mr. Hadreas’s aching, androgynous voice at their center, the songs deploy cinematic orchestral arrangements, spooky electronics and instruments that can sound vividly natural or treated and surreal.
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MojoApr 27, 2017A heady, volatile brew that, in these emboldened settings, have the makings of anthems. [Jun 2017, p.92]
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UncutApr 27, 2017As if suddenly unleashed creatively, No Shape finds Hadreas building on Too Bright in every direction at once. ... The queer subtext of Hadreas' work is the source of much of its power. [Jun 2017, p.22]
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Apr 27, 2017This is a dynamic record that focuses on textures to cover the ground between Hadreas' subtle early recordings and the transgressive avante pop of Two Bright.[Apr-Jun 2017, p.85]
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Apr 27, 2017While his fourth record is still a thing of beauty, it’s a fractal work that splinters off into bursts of grandiose noise and multi-layered, multi-instrumental wonder; you’d describe it as comfortably at the opposite end of the musical spectrum to early songs like Lookout, Lookout and No Tear.
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MagnetJun 28, 2017Despite lyrics contending with crippling anxiety, suicide and relationship strife, what ultimately emerges in a celebration of the defiant act of loving and living fully in the face of a world gone mad. [No. 143, p.59]
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May 5, 2017The release is thrillingly palpable.
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May 3, 2017Imperfect yet fascinating and occasionally gorgeous, No Shape once again expands and defies any preconceived boundaries of the Perfume Genius project.
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May 1, 2017Overall No Shape sees a new exciting chapter for Perfume Genius, one that’s happy to fully throw off the image of the tortured artist for brighter, bolder entity. The future looks a little brighter.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 142 out of 159
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Mixed: 5 out of 159
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Negative: 12 out of 159
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May 9, 2017
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May 5, 2017
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May 22, 2017