Releasing her fourth studio album earlier this year, Grimes graced the world with the ethereal Art Angels. Follow-up to 2012’s Visions, Art Angels was a long-time-coming for fans. But after being titled NME’s Album of the Year as well as being her most commercially successful album to date, the wait has undoubtedly proven worth it.
Grimes teased us with the first taste of Art Angels with lead single ‘Flesh Without Blood’, where electronica confronts soft rock with tingles of Grimes’ sensual, varied vocal abilities. The track demonstrates Grimes’ ability to draw the listener into a sense of convinced control, before releasing us into a layered explosion that stimulates fascination, avoiding boisterousness. The infusion of electronica and soft rock is executed in ‘Kill V. Maim’ too, Grimes’ self-confessed peak of the album, an unsurprising statement with the track’s production undeniably first-rate.
One standout track from the LP is ‘Artangels’, a sweet, celestial track that bounces its way through electronic waves smothered in encapsulating bubblegum goodness. The song showcases Grimes’ heavenly sound, a sound also executed in ‘California’, and its infectiously catchy nature makes it a delightful listen and a contender for Grimes’ best ever song – in competition with non-album single ‘Go’. Other highlights include Grimes’ collaboration with Janelle Monáe, entitled ‘Venus Fly’. Evoking dance vibes, a genre that seems to continually work well with Grimes, ‘Venus Fly’ has a feisty roughness complimented by snippets of indulgent pop, before climaxing with deep drops.
Art Angels is a skilled record, professing the eclectic but very knowing style of Grimes. It never wavers, but continuously delivers a very original sound; a product of another, much more captivating, planet.
Art Angels was released on 6th November via 4AD.
