Learning, Mike Hadreas’s 2010 debut as Perfume Genius, dropped silently from nowhere but pulled anyone who heard it into a harrowing journey of abuse, isolation and loss. It was a record that was simultaneously intimate and distant: the lo-fi production and swathes of brooding synth created an effect similar to hearing whispered confessions through radio static, at once obscured and searingly direct.

Put Your Back N 2 It begins in a similar vein, with the delicate vocal of ‘Awol Marine’ muffled by the production before being consumed by a gradually increasing haze of electric guitar. On the next song, however, things change; in what seems to be a purging of his previous work’s cloaked, murky sound, Hadreas’s voice sounds unsettlingly close and clear as he entreats us to “hold my hand” backed only by gently plucked acoustic guitar.

This is indicative of a growth that is present throughout the record: there is a marked increase in confidence both melodically and instrumentally. Many of the songs on Learning sounded so slight and fragile that it seemed they might splinter into a thousand fragments at any moment; Put Your Back N 2 It sees his compositions take on a more robust form by way of subtle instrumental embellishments and a more assured vocal performance.

That being said, this record is not too radical a departure: the songs here are still built around delicately repeated piano figures and a voice imbued with the same tender grace as Sufjan Stevens. The tone also remains relentlessly melancholic, such as on the stunning ‘17’: heavy, mournful cello strains beneath a trembling delivery, while a reverberating drum beat occasionally echoes in the darkness.

This introduction of percussive elements is perhaps the most striking addition to Perfume Genius’s sound, giving a dynamic drive to songs like ‘Hood.’ Learning cuts like the ambient wailing of ‘Gay Angels’ cultivated a kind of oppressive stasis that is thrown into relief here, a progression that sees a corresponding movement emotionally as Hadreas resolves to love fully and “fight not to do you wrong.”

‘Hood,’ the lead single from the record, generated an ironic controversy that adds weight to the lyrical defiance of internalised homophobia on preceding track ‘All Waters’: its video, which features two topless men embracing, was banned from Youtube for not being “family safe.” This censorship renders the assertion of increased comfort in his sexuality that colours many of Hadreas’s lyrics all the more resonant. On songs like the title track, he crafts a kind of beauty from sexual explicitness; frank and tender, he celebrates the fragility and closeness of two exposed bodies, maintaining “there is still grace in this.”

Put Your Back N 2 It, then, still has the redemptive spirit of Learning;  Mike Hadreas produces songs of startling, aching beauty in the face of emotional anxiety and pain.

A restorative triumph.