- Four albums deep and Claire Boucher, aka Grimes, has dropped the pop release she’s been alluding to since 2012 when she threw her weight behind the “pop is not a dirty word” movement. Having written, performed, produced and engineered Art Angels herself, it is now impossible to ignore Boucher’s production prowess, skill and dedication to developing Grimes beyond bedroom experimentation.

Art Angels sees Boucher allowing her fairy-floss vocals to take centre stage, a decision that got the echoes shrouding the vocal melody on the demo version of Realiti released earlier this year, scrubbed away. The version of the track that appears on the LP defiantly conquers mountains of layered synths and polished EDM beats. Realiti is the first in a run of songs grouped at the end of Art Angels, which nicely summarise the latest version of Grimes’ sound.

World Princess Part II, the sequel to a track off 2011’s Halfaxa, is notable for its balanced sound, with the melancholy, almost ghostly vocals howling across a syncopated rhythm section and synth-pop hook. It’s followed by Venus Fly featuring Janelle Monae, a high-octane voguing jam, with Monae’s brash vocal refrain stomping over staccato lasers and menacing bass drum in one of the album’s angrier moments.

Art Angels’ hooks are bright, the vocals sweet and delicate and Boucher sounds optimistic, even when she isn’t. When approaching the vexations of being disposable in the music industry on bubblegum pop jaunt California, the track is insistently upbeat – almost sickly sweet. The exaggerated sunniness of Art Angels seems like the high noon of the Grimes project. When you zoom out on the development of Grimes’ sound, it’s gradually been lifted out of the nihilistic bog of experimental dissonance on 2010’s Geidi Primes, drawing on melodic influences from the pop spectrum, increasingly with each release and culminating in Art Angels.

Strangely this isn't what might undo the record, ironically it's the opposite. There is just so much to take in on each track: Boucher has enlisted more samples and cut beats than it is humanly possible to keep track of –unless you’re her, of course– and herein lies a significant downside. It remains to be seen whether the average Grimes fan has the time or patience to sift through and appreciate each song’s idiosyncrasies, or whether it will just come across as a giant avant-pop soundwall. Audience-wise, Art Angels targets such a wide spectrum it's hard to imagine it will please everyone, or even know who it will please. Either way, Grimes has produced a pop album that is still subversive enough to solidify her bona fides as a producer capable of exploring all corners of her sound, without losing her vision.  

- Grace Pashley.