Kim Petras – TURN OFF THE LIGHT

By Sydney Davis

Only a little over three months from her debut album Clarity, Kim Petras released her second studio album, Turn Off the Light on October 1^st. The album includes eight songs from her 2018 EP, Turn Off the Light Vol. 1, along with the addition of nine new songs. The album was originally supposed to be just a second volume, but Petras decided to compile them together to continue the Halloween theme and to give her fans, as she says the whole story. This is pretty cool due to the fact that you hear holiday music for the holiday season, but not so often is there music for Halloween. Many artists may make spooky or chilling music, but it’s rare to find an album like this one specifically dedicated to Halloween.

From the new songs, “Purgatory”, “Bloody Valentine”, and “<demons>”, all are heavy instrumental beats with Petras giving a few repeated phrases, words, or a sole repeating chorus. These songs are most definitely dance songs to play at a party or event. “Knives” is a very creative instrumental due to the fact that the beat is reminiscent of knives slashing against each other, and Petras offers no vocals at all to let the beat stand alone. On “Massacre”, Petras flips the melody of the Christmas classic “Carol of the Bells” into her own sinister version detailing a murder. “There Will Be Blood”, “Wrong Turn”, and “Death By Sex” were very similar in meaning because all of them essentially had metaphors for how relationships can be dark, but amazing and just may kill them in the process of making it through said relationship.

The last song on the album and also the last newly released song is “Everybody Dies”. This song has a different vibe than the rest of the album to me. It still has the theme of death, but it has a more mainstream pop beat as opposed to an electronic dance instrumental beat. The song is reflective of no matter how we all live our lives, we will all die at some point. This sounds morbid, but Petras is also trying to convey the message that we should all live our lives how we want to and to the fullest, because one day we will not be able to anymore.

I did not do my research on the background of neither Kim Petras, nor the album until after I listened to it. Once I did some background research and listened to the album again, I developed a deeper understanding to the album and to its Halloween theme. I also learned that essentially this was just nine new songs keeping the eight already released from last year, and to me many of the songs were similar just with different lyrics and slightly different beats. This plays a big role in my rating of the album, because for a Halloween album this was great, but for an overall album not so much. The album really pigeoned-holed itself into a Halloween sound, and did not necessarily do so well as to make eerie music that you would want to listen to year-round. Overall, I think Petras should have just kept this as an EP versus an album since half of the album was already released as an EP already, and she didn’t bring anything super different to the table with the second half.

Rating: 5.5/10

Favorite Track: “Everybody Dies”