Ariana Grande has long been a megastar, but it’s only recently that she’s become truly inescapable: it looked like the singer might pivot into acting full-time after the success of the Wicked movies, but no, new record ‘petal’ is here to dominate the radio waves once again. Even still, we can’t help but wonder if this, her darkest and most unassuming project to date, might just be an epilogue of sorts.

‘petal’ runs counter to the daring vocal acrobatics and the bold displays of personality that used to define records like ‘Dangerous Woman’ and ‘Sweetener’, so much so that you have to wonder if the singer was aiming for widespread commercial success with this one at all. There’s no moment where we’re treated to those all-important soprano runs, save for the ending of ‘never get over me’ (and even then, it’s quite tame by Grande’s lofty standards), and that feels like a very intentional choice— ‘petal’ is an album that creeps up on you, skulking along as it does. If any singer in pop music has proven her vocal prowess beyond a shadow of a doubt, it’s this one: on her eighth studio album, Ariana Grande settles into a hazy soundscape, one that she isn’t necessarily at the forefront of.

Right from opener ‘kiss me,’ the album lays its striking production out for all to see. It’s an arrangement full of cinematic synth swells and clunky drum tones that is, first and foremost, restrained and pared-back: Grande’s penchant for memorable melodies remains, of course, but it must be said that taken as a whole, ‘petal’ sounds much darker and (for lack of a better word) grittier than its predecessors. Single ‘hate that i made you love me’ may feature some rock-solid songwriting to carry it through, but it’s the track’s distant electronic touches and hazy presentation that makes it such a winner— the record feels confident in that it isn’t out to impress you, but feels content to move at its own pace.

Confidence is, in fact, a key theme across ‘petal,’ taking root not just in the record’s presentation, but in its lyrical themes as well. Though the break-up music of 2024’s ‘Eternal Sunshine’ remains here, it’s hard not to find some degree of double-meaning within these songs, as Grande openly explores her own fame and her relationship with the fans on the album’s title track. The punchy piano-driven ‘big feelings’ and the 808-fuelled hooks of ‘like i do’ are sexual in nature, certainly, but they also sound like a singer boldly asserting herself in the public eye, a layer that lends both songs even more suspense and impact. Simply put, the vibrant energy of ‘bad thing (bunny hop)’ and the serene arrangement of riding-into-the-sunset closer ‘nowhere, nobody’ speak to an artist who isn’t making too many compromises.

But then again, ‘petal’ displays a little more vulnerability than it was probably intended to: for as brief as the album is at only 36-minutes total, Grande’s latest crop of tracks is prone to stumbling here and there, and that stripped-back production is hiding absolutely nothing. ‘oh well’ is an arrogant break-up number like the singer’s written a hundred times before, but the dense collection of vocal layers, synth arpeggios and drum loops that makes up the track is much too busy, and winds up robbing the song of the knockout impact it’s so clearly aiming for— ‘stay,’ right before it, is similarly cluttered, and barebones in its writing to boot. We also have to mention ‘freak,’ a cut that sees its lush guitar-backed verses slamming straight into jarring electric piano blasts: the move towards lofi soundscapes was obviously not without its hiccups.

‘petal’ may be a hard pill for some fans to swallow, and that’s entirely understandable: it has the nerve to use pitch correction of one of the defining voices in modern popular music, for goodness sake! What this album lacks in pure pop appeal, though, it makes up for and then some by being so very intriguing. Ariana Grande isn’t belting her heart out here, and we’re glad— if she had, she might’ve smothered this crop of subtle tracks, which could realistically be her last for some time.