Perfume Genius brings his Glory tour to Phoenix on Friday

When you untwist the knife and pull it out after a listen to Perfume Genius’ latest release, Glory, the blade might appear slightly cleaner than, say, a ride through earlier full-length records like Put Your Back N 2 It or 2017’s No Shape, but make no mistake: there will be blood.

Mike Hadreas — who has been performing as Perfume Genius for more than a decade — kicks off this new record with “It’s A Mirror,” which is unexpectedly lilting with its rootsy porch-stomp backbeat that rings out with a gentle clang ‘n’ twang.

Musically, the song understands Hadreas’ need for space and starkness but serves it up with a breezy and delicate gusto, its fragility intact. When the lyrics, like “What do I get from being established? / I still run and hide when a man’s at the door,” join the party, the whole picture becomes clear. The record is equal parts roots and journey, wrapped in a new sense of resolution. The heartwrenching beauty expected from Hadreas hasn’t gone anywhere; it’s innate, and all the nuances, from sound to instrumentation, only lead you deeper into his continuing trip.

Attendees get to hear a mix of these new songs and a mix of earlier tunes on Friday, May 30, when Hadreas stops in Phoenix, at downtown’s The Van Buren, on his Glory tour.

From its powerful moments like on “No Front Teeth,” where Hadreas is joined by singer Aldous Harding, when it turns on a dime from a rich and dark ballad to a punch-in-the-gut rocker, to dreamy tracks like “Dion,” the record keeps you holding its thread.

Hadreas explains the process behind Glory. “All the songs were written within a couple of weeks,” he says. “But, (he laughs), I spent a lot of time thinking about them before that. I spend a lot of time in a smooth brain zone where it seems like nothing is happening, but behind that, things are working, processing, and then I’m ready to do it. When the first song from this record came out (of me), the rest came pretty easily. Well, not easily, but I had direction.”

He knew the direction was to mine his mind and pull out what he wanted to say from a landscape thick with rolling thoughts. “I knew that I was trying to write songs to kind of articulate something I was having a hard time articulating inside, out loud — things I couldn’t tidy up in my head. A lot of it was very close to me, like where I’m at now, where I’ve been, what’s coming next, and the entirety of, well, almost everything (laughs).”

Hadreas also knew that what he needed to do wouldn’t be easy, but necessary. “I had an internal spiral, and I knew the answer was to get out of myself, out of my head, and engage with people in the world, even though my instincts were to isolate and try to figure it all out. I knew that if I wanted something new, I’d have to change my situation.” It’s a tough limbo to be in, and that wasn’t lost on Hadreas. “Going back into the world and engaging felt just as fragile and scary, especially because of how things are and where the world is, you know?”

So, how did he make that transition from that emotional mindscape to the external world? “Well, I don’t know if I have any answers for any of it, but the songs became a way to be a mirror to how I felt in a way that was inspiring and comforting.”

What he figured out was that the mirror was the key. “I think sometimes I thought that songs have to come from a place when I’m completely on the other side of something, and everything is very clear. And these songs don’t feel like that, but in a way that feels more helpful than if I were,” he says.

Hadreas also finds satisfaction in the relatability of his music. “All the songs start from a personal place, but then I give an access point and it becomes, well, ’cause they’re not for me, the record becomes something for everybody else. I give that access, and then it becomes like an ASMR for other people to have.”

Hadreas says that making music that people can tether to for any type of solace comes with a sense of pressure that he doesn’t mind. “Yeah, I can feel pressure, but in a good way. After I put out the first record, it changed how I wrote because I knew people were gonna listen to it, I knew I was gonna tour. People wrote to me and told me what it meant to them and I felt a sense of responsibility but in a way that felt really good to me because I didn’t feel purposeful in a lot, if any way (laughs) before I started to make music.”

He says he’s feeling especially good while on this tour. “It feels a little like the blooming of something that, even if it’s just for the show, feels really good to have, especially right now. Things in the world are heightened right now. You can’t really trust any bigger system, and just being with the people you love and the people that you’d want to protect, those smaller things feel way bigger and huge. They always have been, but it’s just really heightened right now,” he reiterates.

Perfume Genius performs at 8 p.m. on Friday, May 30, with opener urika’s bedroom. Tickets for ages 13 and older start at $41.75.