New Lady Gaga music is inherently exciting and MAYHEM starts strong. “Disease” and “Abracadabra” open the album with plenty of energy. Maybe fittingly, she delves deeply into nostalgic sounds for the album. Her pastiche goes pleasingly broad as well. She draws from alt-rock in the standout “Perfect Stranger” and from Prince and Bowie in the strong “Killah.”
This nostalgia undercuts the album though. There’s not enough of interest here and so it overstays its welcome. Where other necromancers like Rina Sawayama add new texture to the space, Gaga plays it very straight and so the album’s rewarming of stale sounds loses pace. It’s still overall a fun album but never much more than a diversion.
Top Five Records 