Album Of The Week: Perfume Genius Too Bright

This is one of those difficult weeks, one of those weeks when choosing one favorite album becomes a near-impossible task. It's the week when Aphex Twin came back after a decade-plus absence with SYRO, a warm and welcoming but also complex and overwhelming piece of work. And even though I already wrote about SYRO, and we don't do Album Of The Week pieces on albums when they've already been Premature Evaluation, that one feels huge enough that it could've been an exception. This is also the week that SBTRKT cashed in all his collaborator chips with the strange, beguiling Wonder When We Land and that Leonard Cohen went all Waitsian blues-mutter on Popular Problems. Julian Casablancas + The Voidz and Alt-J both put out big, fascinating, conversation-starting albums today, and even if I don't really like those albums, it's fun to have them around to pick apart. Bonnie "Prince" Billy and King Tuff and Mr Twin Sister and NehruvianDOOM and Tweedy all put out records that I really do like, to varying degrees. It kills me that I'm not giving Album Of The Week to GOAT's percussive, reverb-heavy psych-funk workout Commune; I love that goofy thing to pieces. There was heavy, heavy competition this week, and yet there was only one real choice. When an already-powerful artist makes a big leap into the unknown, switches up sounds, and takes chances that pay off, that album deserves to be recognized. And it's been a long time since anyone has made that leap with the sort of grace and force and style that Perfume Genius brings to Too Bright, his third album.