Peaches is the sort of artist who is so defined by the fully formed, distinct aesthetic of her debut album that her subsequent releases cannot help but seem like sequels in a film series. As such, her last two records were clear cases of diminishing returns-- Fatherfucker seemed lazy and rushed; Impeach My Bush was better, but inconsistent in its inspiration. Both albums expanded upon the gleefully pervy, button-pushing persona established on The Teaches of Peaches, but broke little ground in their own right, and mostly presented a more extreme and gratingly puerile variation on her brand of sexually confrontational performance art. This was unfortunate, as the raw power of songs like "Fuck the Pain Away" and "Lovertits" came just as much from their bawdiness as their well-crafted tunefulness and expression of complicated, conflicted emotions. As she drifted toward intellectualized vulgarity, she lost touch with the wounded humanity that made The Teaches of Peaches so engaging. I Feel Cream finds Peaches reversing that trend, and reconnecting with the muse that produced her early classics. At the same time, its songs point in new directions for her aesthetic and offer her a future beyond endless retreads on a tired formula.
Though it feels strange to describe an album with such unapologetically filthy lyrics as "mature," the word certainly applies here, and not just in the way Peaches foregrounds and embraces her advancing age in many of the songs. Several tracks delve deep into what Stephen Malkmus might refer to as "real emotional trash," and allow her to reveal a vulnerability that had only been hinted at on previous efforts. "Talk To Me", one of the best songs of Peaches' career to date, has her confronting problems with a partner head-on without pulling any punches, and singing her heart out with the aggrieved intensity of Tina Turner. "Lose You", the atypically ethereal track that follows in the sequence, flips the mood with her voice taking on a demure affect as she frets about driving her lover away over a low key yet bass-heavy groove. Both cuts cast aside the baggage of the Peaches persona and are better for it, and the variation in vocal technique broadens the range of the record considerably.
When Peaches returns to her default position of sexually explicit rapping, her performances are more focused and gracefully composed than in the past, perhaps a direct result of the superior quality beats provided by guest producers Simian Mobile Disco and Digitalism. "Billionaire", the record's most overtly hip-hop oriented track, is a genuine banger with rhymes recalling Beck circa Midnite Vultures, and stands out as another all-time high in the Peaches songbook. The remainder of the selections favor a more European approach to keyboard tones and dance beats, which in turn brings her deeper into a modern club sound beyond her origins in electroclash. Intriguingly, the record's final quarter slips into a woozy, down-tempo minimalism that feels sexy as opposed to sexual, and comes across like an update on the freakishly calm funkiness of Missy Elliott and Timbaland's early-00s collaborations.
Depsite the number of collaborators on board for I Feel Cream-- Gonzalez, Soulwax, and Drums of Death also contribute-- Peaches still produced the lion's share of the album on her own, and her sensibility as a musician has clearly evolved along with her approach to lyrics. Ultimately, even when she veers into previously unexplored aesthetic territory, every track feels just like Peaches, which is rather remarkable given how rigid and predictable she had been in the recent past. Whereas it was beginning to seem that Peaches' shtick was an artistic dead end, there is now plenty of reason to believe that she may have the skills and vision necessary to produce interesting, emotionally affecting work well beyond menopause.
