Album Review: Kim Petras Is Bringing The Bops From Your Nightmares
On her latest effort Turn Off The Light, the rising princess of dance-pop delivers a spine-chilling and synth-driven soundtrack to this year’s spooky season.
Written by Kameel Karim
Photo courtesy of Out Magazine
With a new, full-length project hot on the heels of her critically-acclaimed debut album Clarity and the subsequent 24-stop Broken Tour, it’s apparent that Kim Petras has no intention of slowing down anytime soon. Though originally scheduled to be released later this month as a follow-up to last autumn’s Turn Off the Light, Vol. 1, the 17-track Turn Off The Light LP hit streaming platforms on Oct. 1 as a surprise release. Petras announced the change of plans on Instagram, declaring, “i know u were expecting vol 2 but I’m giving u the whole damn story.” And a cohesive, experiential story is exactly what she delivers — the 49 minutes that this album encompasses feels more like a single, hair-rising night spent running for your life than a slickly-wrapped bundle of pop production.
The unearthly opener “Purgatory” cracks open the door to Petras’ world, slowly building from a tinkling intro to cinematic orchestral runs, before dropping into a thumping beat that sets the tone for the journey to come: sinister and electrifying, like a gory slasher flick encrusted in sequins and bathed in neon. From an effortless transition into the next track, “There Will Be Blood” arises, an exuberant anthem for thrill-seekers propelled by shouting vocals and glittering synths. “Don’t let me in, I’ma ruin your life / I’m straight psychotic,” she warns in the pre-chorus, then in a Jekyll and Hyde moment, switches to cajoling the listener to come closer: “This is gonna be a hell of a night / I know you want it.”
Petras proceeds to jump immediately into the distorted chanting of instrumental “Bloody Valentine” and, with it, establishes a pattern that rears its head throughout the entire album. Instrumentals alternate with songs with lyrics to craft an experience that’s as visceral as it is aural; when Petras isn’t singing, she’s providing a rich soundscape that sketches the outline of a movie you love and fear equally in just a few deliberate strokes. “Wrong Turn” kicks off with a speeding car that skids and crashes, allowing Petras to fill in the blanks. “Never shoulda came alone / Never gonna make it home,” she intones while the backdrop swirls and shimmers. The clanking, thrumming “<demons>” segues into the eerie “Massacre,” which inverts the familiar melody of “Carol of the Bells” into its homicidal photographic negative. “Knives” utilizes the jarring noise of blades scraping against each other to lead into another tirelessly danceable club beat, and the follow-up “Death By Sex” turns meltingly provocative over an array of hi-hats and kick drums that lend it a distinctly more trap flavor than the previous tracks.
On the sparing “o m e n,” Petras’ voice is spectrally layered to set up “Close Your Eyes,” whose lyrics signify a change in the already formidable trajectory of the night. “I try, try to resist / But then the Devil always wins,” she laments, delivering a punchy high note before lapsing into a haunting post-chorus that repeats the title until her voice crumples and distorts.
Especially masterful is the heartbeat at the very end of the track that transitions into footsteps on “TRANSylvania,” indicating that though the end is near, she isn’t done toying with her captive audience just yet. The titular “Turn Off The Light” featuring cult horror icon Elvira, Mistress of the Dark beckons to the listener to embrace depravity and quite literally come to the dark side. Meanwhile, “Tell Me It’s A Nightmare” reflects on how far and erribly both Petras and her prey have fallen (“Tried to save ya, warn ya, keep you alive / Tried to stop ya, but you paid the price”).
Photo courtesy of BunHead Records
The night begins to draw to a close with “i don’t wanna die…” as Petras seeks a way to tease out the thrills of this lifestyle indefinitely, and on “In The Next Life,” she finds it: the answer lies in the promise of rebirth, and with it the assurance that she should use her given time to the absolute maximum. Verse two on this track is a particular standout because Petras delivers it in her native German, referencing the bubonic plague (“die Plage”) that ravaged Europe in the Middle Ages and likening it to herself. The final instrumental of the album, “Boo! B-tch!” rides the high of discovering reincarnation into closing track “Everybody Dies,” which furthers her agenda of going out with a bang in a style markedly different from the rest of the album. Petras ditches the bone-rattling bass for a soaring, contemplative semi-ballad boasting the distinct inflection of a traditional waltz, exposing for a bittersweet moment a taste of vulnerability, mortality, and the achingly human desire to be remembered. “You can’t scare me, I’m prepared,” she proclaims, at once resigned and triumphant. “Give me all my roses while I’m here.”
Dizzying in its scope, Turn Off The Light is an album that showcases the unstoppable ambition of Kim Petras in more ways than one. From its accelerated release to the choice to include almost half an hour of wordless EDM — to say nothing of the impressively immersive Halloween theme — this is a project that not only offers a worthwhile successor to last year’s EP, but also proves that it can stand on its own feet. Petras’ storytelling and atmospheric instrumentals work in tandem to set a narrative with defined slopes of rising and falling action, and she never stops shining in the middle. Though it’s ultimately impossible to classify her as either the hero or villain of the night, one can’t help but root for her all the same.