Perfume Genius lays all the pain out there for all the world to hear. - Oh My Rockness

Band We Like

Perfume Genius lays all the pain out there for all the world to hear.

September 21, 2010
Heartbreaking. That's all I can think of when I listen to the raw, emotional songs of Seattle's Mike Hadreas, a.k.a. Perfume Genius. It's immediately obvious as one listens in that this guy is working out some serious shit here.

Hadreas himself says that this music is a way to finally face all of his personal demons. So bubblegum pop this is not. But boy is this good.

Often using only a forlorn sounding piano as accompaniment, Hadreas sings his songs of pain in the tenor voice of a tortured angel. If that sounds dramatic, well, that's because Perfume Genius is full of disturbing and haunting and intoxicating and unsettling... drama. When it's not a lone piano doing all the haunting, Perfume Genius also incorporates stripped-down synths, seemingly abandoned organs, and lonely atmospherics.

I guess I kind of feel bad, like a rubbernecker, listening in from a safe distance as someone faces the ghosts from their past. Almost like I'm a peeping tom and shouldn't be privy to this, much less find entertainment in it. But I guess that's what art does sometimes. And not only does Perfume Genius make art, he will definitely break your heart.

BUY TICKETS TO SEE PERFUME GENIUS AT HOLLYWOOD FOREVER CEMETERY!


Perfume Genius plays Hollywood Forever Cemetery, on Tuesday, September 28th.

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER!

Get new Los Angeles announcements, free show info, ticket giveaways and more...