Ariana Grande trades sunshine for shadows on 'Petal'

Who pissed disconnected Ariana Grande? Well, who didn’t?

On her caller album, “Petal,” the popular superstar opens the spigot connected what she’s described arsenic an “unfiltered rage” to blast immoderate fig of feckless exes, a prying nationalist obsessed with her assemblage and her idiosyncratic beingness — and not slightest herself for allowing anyone the powerfulness to wounded her successful the archetypal place.

“Tell maine who’s to blasted — is it the radical oregon myself?” she wonders against the icy synth stabs of the rubric track.

Her answer, delivered arsenic a sneering small aside: “Yeah.”

“Petal” marks a melodramatic displacement from Grande’s erstwhile LP, 2024’s “Eternal Sunshine,” a tender and melancholy electro-pop postulation that laid retired a benignant of affectional doctrine of heartbreak. She recorded the caller medium with the aforesaid squad — the hit-making writer-producers Ilya Salmanzadeh and Max Martin — but present they spell for a murkier, much percussive dependable to lucifer Grande’s acheronian mood.

Tolling electrical guitar accompanies her successful “Freak” arsenic she muses connected “all of the beingness I’ve been denied,” portion “Oh Well” puts a jittery U.K. store bushed nether her sneering farewell to an unnamed antagonist: “Good luck connected your mode to hell.” In “Hate That I Made You Love Me,” which debuted astatine No. 1 connected Billboard’s Hot 100 erstwhile Grande released it arsenic “Petal’s” pb single, she sings, “I’ve held your projections erstwhile you’ve felt truthful insecure,” implicit a trudging groove that moves similar a ceremonial march.

These downcast observations get astatine what would look to beryllium a nonrecreational precocious constituent for Grande, who precocious wrapped her extended enactment successful the “Wicked”-verse and who’s successful the mediate of a circuit that’s drawn adoring fans to arenas crossed the country.

But possibly that’s the point: Almost each opus connected “Petal” tin beryllium interpreted 2 ways — arsenic a communicative astir a breached narration betwixt 2 radical oregon arsenic a communicative astir the toxic transportation betwixt an idol and her audience. (More than erstwhile did this grounds marque maine deliberation astir Taylor Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department.”)

“My symptom is euphony — bash you perceive maine everywhere?” Grande asks successful “Warning Signs (Interlude),” which climaxes with a pithy diagnosis of popular stardom successful the parasocial age: “You don’t merit maine / You cognize you don’t, you ne'er person / But I privation you to consciousness maine / I privation idiosyncratic could perceive me.”

Complaints astir personage tin beryllium beauteous tedious, of course; sometimes it feels arsenic though celebrated popular singers person forgotten however to constitute astir thing different than beingness successful the social-media fishbowl.

Yet “Petal” gets immoderate originative traction from however Grande chooses to usage her voice; alternatively of belting, she seldom rises supra a whisper, which gives a spooky, somewhat creepy prime to her thoughts connected being endlessly scrutinized. The airiness of her singing provides immoderate drama excessively successful a hard-edged opus specified arsenic “Like I Do,” wherever aft noting that “all that s— speech keeps maine well-fed,” she tells whoever needs to perceive it, “No 1 f— you similar I do.”

Having gotten each this disconnected her chest, Grande finishes the medium by allowing successful immoderate light: Over a zippy caller question arrangement, “Bad Thing (Bunny Hop)” ponders the renewing vigor of a caller romance — oregon possibly a rekindled aged 1 — portion the glistening “Nowhere, Nobody” has her taking heavy breaths with a person she’s convinced mightiness yet springiness her what she needs.

“Convinced” is astir apt the incorrect word.

“Hard to judge successful a cleanable ending,” she admits, “But that’s each right.”