Grimes - Miss Anthropocene review: Big ideas about the future get buried in sonic murk

There will probably be interest from beyond her cult fanbase in Claire “Grimes” Boucher’s fifth album, now that the Canadian singer-producer is a gossip-mag target as the other half of tech billionaire Elon Musk.

As may be expected of anyone who mixes in such company, it arrives trumpeting some big ideas: anthropocene is the name some scientists propose for the epoch we now live in, in which humanity’s actions are causing huge changes to our climate and environment.

The artwork makes this clear: grey cyborg characters and computer text such as: RUN SIMULATION “GLOBAL_EXTINCTION”. However, it’s less obvious from the music, with her high, blurry voice, synths and guitars often buried in sonic murk. Gloomy opener So Heavy I Fell Through the Earth, and the growling rock guitars of My Name Is Dark, hints at the symphonic metal of bands Evanescence and Within Temptation. The racing drum and bass of 4ÆM sounds out of date before it even finishes.

So futuristic is her usual style that this all comes as a surprise, as does the acoustic guitar on the unexpectedly traditional Delete Forever. There’s more focus on the startling Darkseid — a rumbling bassline underpins a breathless turn from Taiwanese rapper Aristophanes. Finally the birdsong and bright synths of closing song Idoru offer welcome, if belated, warmth and perhaps suggest that in the dark world Grimes has envisioned, everything will be all right in the end.