“Half of my whole life is gone,” Mike Hadreas sighed on the opening of Perfume Genius’ 5th album, the high-water mark Set My Heart on Fire Immediately. Though that may sound like an expression of regret, Hadreas sang it with a kind of guarded optimism — opening a door into a record that gleefully documented life’s contradictions through odes to connections to the self and others.
On Glory, Perfume Genius’ latest, Haderas is once again mulling the grand arc of his existence. He ponders “my entire life…” on “No Front Teeth” before pausing. Then, he confesses: “It’s fine.” On the nervy, agoraphobic “It’s a Mirror,” he admits, “My whole life is/Open just outside the door.” He’s isolated, stuck inside his own agonizing thought patterns, and he knows something…