Grimes review, Miss Anthropocene: A problematic fave finds her humanity on a masterful, genre-spanning triumph
When we weren’t looking, the Canadian polymath Grimes transformed from a cyberpunk art pop genius to a real life Batman villain in a relationship with Elon Musk. She espoused the values of capitalism, Azealia Banks was trapped in her basement, and she may or may not have had parts of her eyeball removed.
If existing as a junk drawer of discarded Ryan Murphy plotlines felt exhausting, it was nothing compared to being a Grimes fan. Suddenly the previously infallible Grimes was problematic, her politics vaguely reprehensible, her interviews baffling. Not knowing whether Grimes is being absolutely sincere or elaborately trolling everyone has always been a part of her unique appeal, but her rapid devolution was hard to swallow regardless. It would be harder if she wasn’t simultaneously making total bangers.
Grimes has succinctly described her third major-label album, Miss Anthropocene, as the tale of “the anthropomorphic goddess of climate change”, who is a “psychedelic, space-dwelling demon/beauty-queen who relishes the end of the world”. In execution, it’s nowhere near as exhausting.
There is a storyline here, though, one that is more ponderous, saddened and searching than her previous work. Total annihilation is a recurring theme, significant time is spent mourning lost loved ones, and she often returns to feelings of hopelessness in a world spinning off its axis. How this squares with Grimes’ relationship with Musk, the union-busting, scandal-plagued Lex Luthor of business, isn’t clear. But if you choose to take her art as entirely self-contained, the contradictions become less of a problem.
Sonically speaking, Miss Anthropocene operates much like a greatest hits record. It sees Grimes pull from many of the sounds that have made her one of pop’s most inventive artists, her voice elastic and fibrous over industrial-rock synths, acoustic guitar and bubblegum squeaks and gurgles. In its chaos is its own sense of odd cohesion.
“4ÆM” is a Benny Hill chase sequence of a track, theatrical wailing segueing into a relentlessly sped-up chorus. The thrilling and sensual “Violence” doubles as a surreal kind of orgasm, reimagining humanity and Mother Nature as a mutually punishing love affair (“You wanna make me bad, make me bad / And I like it like that, and I like it like that”).
Missing from the regular-edition track-listing is “We Appreciate Power”, the masterful nu-metal anthem that kicked off the Miss Anthropocene era, but its tendrils can be found on “Darkseid”, a pulsating ode to artificial intelligence that features Taiwanese rapper Aristophanes, and the bratty, apocalyptic “My Name Is Dark”. “You know me as the girl who plays with fire,” Grimes snarls. “But this is the song I wrote you in the dark.”
There’s brilliance here, but it’s when the album slows down that it becomes transcendent. “So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth” is a perfect storm of the slinky and the tortured, Grimes urging a lover to “weigh me down”. “You’ll Miss Me When I’m Not Around” is a gloomy synth-pop ballad that brings to mind Til Tuesday and Bauhaus.
New single “Delete Forever” is akin to a fresh bruise. Inspired by the death of rapper Lil Peep, along with a number of friends who have succumbed to opioid addiction, it finds Grimes’ voice cracking, her sticky vocal placed over banjo, guitar and strings. It’s a song that marks Miss Anthropocene at its most emotionally potent, and Grimes at her most human. She might consider that an insult, long having adopted the public image of a demonstratively wacky robot-girl on the arm of a madman. For her more wavering fans, however, it’ll be a blessed relief.
