[REVIEW] Grimes - Art Angels

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When I first heard Grimes was releasing a new album, I was ecstatic. When I heard “Scream,” the first single, I was extremely disappointed and almost convinced myself I would hate the entire album. Fortunately, that was not the case, as my dancing to parts of Art Angels while writing this review proved.

Art Angels begins with the ethereal “Laughing and Not Being Normal,” a short song that serves as an introduction and segue into the catchy sounds of “California.” The 14-track album continues in much the same way, with some songs seeming to serve no other purpose than to connect the stronger parts of the album. That’s not to say those tracks aren’t fantastic. “California,” “Pin” and the redux of the previously released demo of “Realiti” are Grimes at her best: poppy and quirky. With Art Angels, Grimes has clearly broken into the more mainstream pop and electronic genres without losing the soft lisp and dreamily layered sounds that set her apart from so many of her contemporaries.

The chief disappointment of this new direction is that it loses some of the bite Grimes’ older music was known for. In her 2012 single “Oblivion,” Grimes made her experience with assault very public. Even before having read interviews where she discussed the meaning of the song, it was clear how important “Oblivion” was to her. There are no songs on Art Angels that have the same feeling. She seems lost in her own music, and underneath the song itself, there seems to be very little meaning. Even the flashy video for her single “Flesh Without Blood” feels derivative and fluffy, with no real meaning behind the imagery.

That said, in spite of the lack of meaning in her songs, Grimes is clearly having fun with Art Angels. Her own eclectic taste in music covers a broad range of genres and decades, from Aretha Franklin to Kanye. And despite dabbling more in the pop genre with this album, she still explores sounds and combinations many other artists would not attempt.

Art Angels is an average record put out by someone with an immense amount of talent. Had Grimes not wowed audiences with her earlier work, her new release would not come as such a disappointment. The hits on Art Angels do not make up for the misses, but they give the listener traces of the creative, genre-bending Grimes we know, love and miss.

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