Turn Off The Lights - Kim Petras: Review
is a German pop singer who has had a huge 2019 after releasing her long awaited debut album Clarity to critical acclaim this summer and is now following it up with the second part of Turn Off The Lights a series she started with her Halloween mixtape last year. Turn Off The Lights is a full album that consists of both last years release and over 20 minutes of new material.
Review By Lavender:
It's no secret to anyone that I have been enjoying Kim Petras a lot this year. I gave her album Clarity a 7.5 and retrospectively that may even be low considering most of all my complaints of the record came off just a few tracks. While I've been almost all positive this year towards her output it hasn't always been that way and when Turn Off The Lights Vol. 1 dropped last October I wasn't head over heels for it. The mixtape had its moments but didn't flow quite like a mixtape should and had a few tracks that seemed doomed from the start. Thankfully on this compilation of both years releases Kim not only adds on a bunch of excellent new tracks, but even breathes life into some of the older ones with new mixes.
I did write a review on Turn Off The Lights Vol. 1 last year and despite the songs being a little bit better my opinions haven't changed that much. The tape doesn't have nearly the cohesiveness of its sequel and misses on one or two of its biggest songs, Tell Me It's A Nightmare and In The Next Life. Despite this there a number of fantastic shorter or instrumental moments that do help make it a more enjoyable experience. Turn Off The Lights and I Don't Wanna Die being good examples with my personal favorite being TRANSylvania.
Thankfully part two is better than its predecessor in just about every way, delivering almost entirely great tracks, a much tighter application of its Halloween theme, and a much sharper sonic coherency that makes the listen an absolute treat.
There Will Be Blood is a huge and explosive piece of electro pop with shrill shouted vocals and a pounding electronic beat that sounds like a horror themes club banger. Bloody Valentine sounds like a SOPHIE track with its distorted robotic vocals and careening synth line, even working in some Daft Punk style squeakier synths into a song that absolutely bangs. Wrong Turn isn't the strongest track here and I'm not in love with the hook but the rest of the track is lights out with rattling percussion patterns and a bouncy mix, on top of it all Kim's performance on the verses and the bridge are both killer and helps round the song out.
Massacre sees Kim flipping a sample of Carol Of The Bells and turning it into a haunting Halloween instrumental that I really enjoy. While the melodies aren't the best I do like her performance quite a bit and I enjoy the track as a whole. Finally it's Death By Sex a track that wears its sexuality a little bit on the nose with its lyrics, but the song itself is excellent. The verses are killer and a lot sharper than the hooks that see Kim sounding like a veritable sex goddess and absolute skinny waisted queen, even more so than she already does on nearly every track she's ever released.
While Turn Off The Lights may be a less prominent and calculated moment in the evolution of Kim's career than Clarity it may be even more consistent and unique. While much of the tape is tightly Halloween themed and some of these songs are over a year old I see this tape as less of a novelty and more as something that I could enjoy all year. All I can say is that this is a pretty solid and forward thinking pop and electronica record that I will CERTAINLY be bumping all of October, and likely onward. 7.5/10
For more great electropop check out my review of Charli XCX's Charli here
And my review of Kim's last record Clarity here
