MuchMusic.com

Grimes

Vision

Arbutus Records

Album Review

Grimes is the future of pop music.

Instead of conforming to the ideals of what we define as pop music today, Grimes' Claire Boucher weaves, mixes and practically deforms the sound of earworm-worthy pop melodies into her own brand of music. And for someone to grab music by the balls and have it work around her as oppose to working around it is quite the feat in itself. What obviously helps is the fact that Visions stands up as a remarkable piece of work.

On paper, elements of hip-hop beats, sonic layers of electronic atmospherics, club-worthy dance rhythms and straight-up pop melodies are a bit of a lengthy list of ingredients, but not unusual as most artists pick from a similar grab-bag of parts. But, somehow, Boucher's magical touch of crazy meticulous handy work - done mostly on Garageband, actually - crafts together a beast of its own kind.

Songs like Genesis, Oblivion and Be A Body require multiple listens to derive every little piece of detail that goes into these songs that can otherwise be described as simply addictive. And that's what Visions does so well - makes the listener's gears run wild with fixations with details one minute, but make you lose all ambitions and just dance the other. Boucher complicates things while still adhering to the age-old pop staple of just making things damn catchy and lovable.

Some might see Visions as a whole a bit one-noted, but the album flows effortlessly. It forces the listener to pay attention from beginning to end. It has taken all the old building blocks of music we've come to know and creates a new empire of sound that is going to reinterpret the way we see and hear popular music.