Songs with the sweet smell of success for Perfume Genius

MIKE Hadreas is gay and angry and you can hear it all on his new album. The songwriter behind electro pop project Perfume Genius has poured a lifetime of pain into the record: his preferred metaphor is of a burst dam and the tsunami of emotion it sets free.

“When [homophobic] things are said to you, in the past I would feel embarrassed and self-conscious and keep my head down. Frankly that isn’t working any more. I feel the need to stand up for myself. I wanted to write about feeling empowered,” says the 32-year-old.

The most visible manifestation of his newly cultivated combativeness is Perfume Genius’ latest single ‘Queen’ — or, more specifically, the accompanying video, a shape-shifting, gender-bending affair that manages to be both highly politicised and mind-bendingly surreal. You might not get what it’s about but you won’t forget having sat through it.