album review: 'set my heart on fire immediately' by perfume genius

Oh, I was looking forward to this one.

I can make the argument that Mike Hadreas as Perfume Genius has been one of the most distinctive and potent indie pop artists working today, blending stunning fragility with a coursing raw undercurrent that gave its distinctly queer beauty a striking foundation. And his writing has always felt so distinctive: primal and raw and openly sexual in a way that dares you confront it, but coaxed through language so deft and poetic that you couldn’t help but be entranced by it - and that’s before you dug a little deeper and untangled the multitudes beneath him that more often than not brought hooks along for the bargin!

And as such, between Put Your Back In 2 It, Too Bright and No Shape he’s made some of the best albums of the 2010s, and if anything he was only getting better! So you better believe that even despite early singles implying this might be his softest and most conventionally accessible project to date, especially following the grand high drama of No Shape, I was incredibly excited for this. We’ve seen an artist grow and mature into a distinctive and potent voice and Blake Mills was still on production, and I was intrigued by his language suggesting that he was looking beyond himself more on this project, which would open up a lot more vantage points for his unique voice. And with the mountains of critical acclaim pouring in yet again, what did we get from Set My Heart On Fire Immediately?

So here’s the thing: this was one of the albums I was convinced for a while was great, but would just wind up back On The Pulse - not every excellent album is going to get the full review, after all, especially when it’s a lesser-known indie project and it might seem like Perfume Genius’ formula is becoming well-known. But then I started digging into the crannies and odd pockets of this album and I realized I had a lot more to say, because not only does it grow on me with every listen, this is more of a departure for Perfume Genius than I think is being acknowledged, both in sound and content. I will say right out of the gate I don’t think it’s better than No Shape - ‘Wreath’, ‘Just Like Love’, ‘Otherside’, those approached a glorious opulent explosion this project doesn’t even attempt - but paradoxically I think this might be the easiest project for me to revisit from him, and by far his most accessible.

Now accessibility is can be tough to quantify with a character like Mike Hadreas - his unique warble bends and quivers from a hushed, near-guttural lower register to a very breathy falsetto, and while his voice isn’t quite as quaking with emotion as previous projects, that emotive intensity has not gone anywhere. Like always he is the star of any Perfume Genius project… but there’s something different about how he carries himself here. And I’m not sure I can just call it newfound confidence: he’s always been willing to bold-facedly confront those thrown off by him, force them to confront his intensity, but this album doesn’t feel as directly confrontational. His presence is more self-assured and poised, some of the rawness has been tempered, and that definitely extends to the sonic palette he uses, drawing a little less on grand classical romanticism supported by ragged, pulsating grooves and moving up a few decades to slightly more contemporary baroque pop - think the early-to-mid 60s, reinforced by how Hadreas has outright referenced Roy Orbison. And there is a smattering of that very early rock or even twinges of country underpinning some of these cuts - sizzling guitars and basslines, more live drumwork beneath the strings and keys - and that softens some of that juxtaposition, or at least shifts to tones that a broader critical audience might find more familiar. Hell, a song like ‘On The Floor’ might as well sound like BORNS’ ‘Electric Love’ with its quicker groove and echo of backing vocals and that stunner of a bridge - and of course I intend that as a compliment, but it could well be considered safer. As would the slow-burn grind of ‘Describe’ or ‘Nothing At All’ with those subtle backing twinkles, or that cute little gallop behind ‘Without You’, or the dramatic strings splashing off the patter of the groove on ‘Your Body Changes Everything’ that nails the sensual push-pull of sex. And since Hadreas is so damn good at ballads, we get cuts like ‘Just A Touch’ and ‘One More Try’ and the heartbreaking closer ‘Borrowed Light’ off the harmonium, and then there’s the cut that nails the change up on ‘Some Dream’! But it’s still recognizably Perfume Genius, so once I became accustomed to a more tasteful from of reference, the songs worked as well as ever, where even the usual suspects in songs I liked less fell out, like the more abstract, guttural, but weirdly tender ‘Leave’, or the more spare swells around ‘Moonbend’. And if I’m going to nitpick, I’ll always say I prefer Hadreas in his mid-range and not the falsetto, but it’s more hit and miss where it lands, that’s all.

But then I started thinking: why go for a sound that might feel like a departure, or even the first tentative step towards ‘normality’, for as much as we could get it from him? Well, this is where we have to go to his content, which again, might show him at his most direct ever! And it’s established early: the opening track has him find an odd sort of comfort in realizing half his life might be over… because it doesn’t seem to faze him. ‘Describe’ has him hitting a form of depressing rock bottom, but he’s still seeking descriptions of beauty to pull himself out. The anticipation of the crush through ‘On The Floor’ is joyous and never seriously undercut, and even if his relationship on ‘Nothing At All’ is fraught with conflict, it all seems to bounce off of him, his love is that profound. Even his feelings of body dysmorphia, which basically underpinned the entire arc of No Shape, in a fleeting moment on ‘Without You’ he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror that shows him as he is, and it’s such a stablizing moment of hope that had me waiting for the other shoe to drop… but it didn’t happen! Even the sex songs have changed - yeah, you’ll get the primal ecstacy of ‘Leave’ and the rolling tension of ‘Your Body Changes Everything’, but there’s a security here; they don’t feel wracked by pain or angst, and more importantly, they don’t feel like they have to. This comes most to the forefront on ‘Jason’, where he sings about a one-night stand with a straight guy who is clearly going through a very complicated struggle with his sexuality, and Hadreas is the one to walk away, a little hurt as he swipes a twenty from Jason’s jeans, but a sense this is not traumatic for him.

And I have to stress how different that feels: there’s a sense of contentedness and resolve to the writing and scenes where fragile isn’t overwhelming everything, where there could be a sense of normalcy in his storytelling and where the drama is outside himself. And you can tell he’s a little surprised by this, but the followthrough is the question of why this isn’t the norm: the two songs ‘Just A Touch’ and ‘One More Try’ are centered on queer lovers fighting in world wars where they had to conceal their connection, and yet when one partner doesn’t come back, ‘One More Try’ asks the question if they were doomed anyway, why hide anything? Why not normalize their love? Well this is where Hadreas’ angst does return for the final two songs, the first being ‘Some Dream’ where he wonders if cloistered in making art he’s losing his opportunity to have real experiences, imagining a world where he goes outside and everyone is gone and did he really throw away all those possibilities for a song? And then ‘Borrowed Time’ returns to the same question as the opener: what if it was all for naught, what if none of it mattered, what if there wasn’t a point to finding any sense of truth in art as the river of time returns to the sea again - a completely coincidental parallel to that last Jason Isbell album, and yet another comes with the resolution: he slides his hand into that of his partner and is peacefully resigned to whatever might come in the undertow, where he can accept the normalcy and security in his partner as the only thing that’ll make it better. Fascinating in how both expose vulnerabilities and accept companionship to ride the tide, but where Isbell frames it as a necessity in looking at the bigger picture, Hadreas can finally through a smaller, intimate window and is able to exhale after years of fighting, and allowing himself to normalize that framing gives this album its heart.

So yeah, second standalone review in a row, and the album is wonderful yet again. Again, I think the highest moments on No Shape keep it at the top in my books, but this is an extremely close second, and to be honest I’m thrilled that Perfume Genius was able to sidestep just trying to outdo excess, with a thematic pivot mirrored by the production and showing real growth as an artist. This is beautiful stuff, folks, and even beyond me giving this a 9/10, if you’re looking for the easiest possible jump on point for Perfume Genius, it’s this. Please, take the time, check this out!