Grimes - Art Angels (ESGN) 2015
9
Grimes’ new album wasn’t born out of comfort. More importantly, it seems that Art Angels arrives, among many other things, as a realization of sorts.
For too long Claire Boucher has been playing a game of perceptions with the listener. She has grown weary of it. The earthshaking scream of Grimes on the track that features female Taiwanese rapper Aristophanes (“SCREAM”) is more representative of the entire album than maybe any other verse or even the entire song. “I don’t love write about love anymore,” she said in a tweet. It becomes really hard to buy into that premise since the conclusion is that Grimes wrote an entire album centered in self-love. Don’t mistake it for self-pity or unconditional and blind idolization of the self. The self-induced pain that puts things in perspective and reaches some kind of hard hitting reality comes from the courage of taking a deep look in the mirror and use the intel to move forward.
In one of the most daring pop albums in recent memory, Grimes plays a game of “give and take” with the listener, never allowing the dust to settle in the ground nor letting the sweetness often displayed belittle the rage and anger. The ravishing and profound nature of the self-produced Art Angels is enthusiastically received and perceived not only for what it is, but for what it represents.
Hard to believe that this is Grimes’ creative pinnacle. The future couldn’t be more exciting.