'Glory' has a pristine surface and a tender, roiling underside. Mike Hadreas seventh album is muscular, filled out by his partner in life and songcraft Alan Wyffels and longtime producer Blake Mills alongside the fiercest band Perfume Genius has ever assembled: guitarists Meg Duffy and Greg Uhlmann, drummers Tim Carr and Jim Keltner, and bassist Pat Kelly. These players marshall their power, and Hadreas his macabre imaginings and gallows humor, to humane ends. Perfume Genius pries open a mildewed den full of alienation, longing and desire and lets it bask in the sunlight.

The records central conflict, says Hadreas, is the back and forth between internal and external. Promoting his string of beloved, increasingly ambitious albums during the past decade and a halftouring the world, dwelling in the public eyeclashed with his innate impulse toward isolation. For 'Glory,' he discovered a new songwriting process because he welcomed the dynamics of a group, leaving room in his compositions for his friends to flesh out the arrangements. As Hadreas says: Im more engaged with the band and the audience. Im still on some wild tear, but theres more access and its more collaborative, in a way that makes it better, but also scarybecause it feels more vulnerable. - Daniel Felsenthal