You know those artists who you hear/read about for so long, and most of what you’ve heard has been positive, but you haven’t really taken the time to listen to them?

Up until now, that was my experience with Perfume Genius. And as of right now, I still haven’t listened to any of his previous albums, but I decided to check out his sixth studio album, Ugly Season, after hearing/seeing so much critical acclaim for Perfume Genius’s past releases.

Now, before I get into my opinion on the album, I’ve made a minor change to my review format: in the Final Thoughts at the bottom where I list my favourite and least favourite tracks, I’ve decided to start using quotation marks from now on. It makes it easier to tell whether there’s a comma in the song title or if it’s two different songs, and also in case I want to write any notes about my favourite and/or least favourite tracks (example: “[song title]” is my least favourite, but I still love it), it won’t get confused with a song title.

The opening track on Ugly Season, “Just a Room”, really hooked me. It starts off with a really eerie instrumental and fantastic vocals, before mellowing out for the rest of the song, until one more buildup at the end.

After that is the song, “Herem”, which starts out as a very mellow track with some great flute, and then there’s a dramatic shift in sound three minutes into the track. But eventually, the mellow percussion is added to end the track, and I love how this song changes so much throughout. It’s a great song if you ask me.

“Teeth” feels less mellow than the first two songs on the album, and just like both of them, I love this track. The piano and clarinet sound incredible together, and I love the stylistic shifts throughout the song.

The next three songs, though, feel like a big step down from the first three, at least to me.

“Pop Song” starts off pretty boring to me, and the addition of the percussion part-way through just feels really awkward, and I’m not totally sure why. From there, it kind of feels like it doesn’t really go anywhere.

“Scherzo” is an instrumental track which sounds like it had a lot of effort put into it, and I could totally understand why someone might love this track. I absolutely get the appeal of it, but for whatever reason it just kind of bores me. It’s an interesting song that sounds like it could work well in a movie soundtrack, but at least as of right now, it’s not clicking for me.

Then there’s the title track, and all I can really say about this track is … it’s a song. It exists. And I’m not denying the creativity of this track, it’s just that it doesn’t really click for me personally.

To me, the album gets better from here, starting with “Eye in the Wall”, which just has this eerie feeling to it that I really like, and those synths that come in about three and a quarter minutes in are an awesome addition to the track. This song reminds me of “Bad Guy” by Billie Eilish, a song that I have a ton of respect for, despite not being a fan of it myself (that’s right, I don’t like “Bad Guy” … controversial opinion, I know) … but unlike “Bad Guy”, I love “Eye in the Wall”. It just feels so intense in such an interesting way.

“Photograph” takes some time to get going in my opinion, but I like the track overall.

“Hellbent” starts off with an eerie sound that I don’t know how to describe, other than saying it sounds like a broken instrument. There’s also a helicopter-like sound at the start. Overall, this track sounds like a Black Midi song … I mean that as a compliment. However, I wish it didn’t have the line, ‘I cut my arm, it’s all over my coat.’ I don’t think the song is trying to promote self-harm, but I still don’t like that line.

While I don’t think I’d go out of my way to listen to the closer, “Cenote”, on its own, I think it works in the context of the album.

This album made me want to listen to Perfume Genius’s previous albums … I’m not sure when I’ll do that, but I’m almost positive I will at some point.

What I can say right now is that while I’m not as big a fan of this album as most critics seem to be, I still like it, and found it to be really creative and interesting.

Personally, I’m giving Ugly Season a 7/10. It’s eerie, it’s mellow yet still intense, and overall, it’s a really good album if you ask me.

Final Thoughts
Rating: 7/10
Favourite Tracks: “Just a Room”, “Herem”, “Teeth”, “Eye in the Wall”, “Hellbent”
Least Favourite Tracks: “Pop Song”, “Scherzo”, “Ugly Season”