Review by Mark Ventrice

RIYL: Beach House, FKA twigs, Purity Ring

Recommended Tracks: “Butterfly”, “Kill V. Maim”, “World Princess, Pt. II”

Grade: A

Grimes creates the perfect blend between pop-sounding vocals and synthy, electronica beats. Art Angels comes off as something that is just pop enough for the Top 40 fans and just weird enough for people who like their music more on the experimental side. Grimes has a very young-sounding voice, and through some of the songs, she experiments with her voice doing different things—one of the most unique being found in “Kill V. Maim”, where at different points in the song, she sounds like a child about to have a temper tantrum and then transitions into something that sounds like a Top 40 hit.

Songs like “Art Angels” are what would be your standard bubblegum pop song, but part of the chorus is in French, which shows her uniqueness. “Easily” is another more pop-sounding song where she claims to be the “sweetest damn thing you ever saw” over a squeaky electronica beat. She shows her vocal range in “Realiti”, another song made to be palatable to the Top 40 crowd.

“World Princess Part II” is easily the catchiest song on the album. She uses a more unique, high-pitched vocal style through this uptempo, happy-sounding song. This song comes off as her proclaiming herself to be the princess of music, and it sounds like she deserves it. The full extent of weird on this album is the song “SCREAM”, which features Taiwanese rapper Aristophanes. The song is entirely in Taiwanese with sounds of her both screaming and growling on the chorus. It is quite the strange song, but for some reason, it’s also quite good.

Grimes has been compared to a blend between Katy Perry and K-Pop, which is the perfect definition of what this whole album sounds like. She has created something that is undoubtedly unique and incredibly good.