Katy Perry
Witness
Capitol Records

She may have buried her feud with Taylor Swift (thank God, I was so worried about those two!) but Katy Perry is not making nice on her 5^th studio album, Witness.

There are big machine-generated beats, lots of effects on Perry’s possibly-good-but-who-would-ever-know-with-all-this-processing-on-her-vocals vocals, with the two-punch beginning of the big swirly declaration title track and then into “Hey Hey Hey.”

There is a nice snapping beat and plopping bass to the sly dance of “Swish Swish”; we get Nicki Minaj lending her talents on this one where the chorus really moves, but the verses just lie there. “Miss You More,” is a big ballad dead center, where we do indeed finally hear something of Perry’s vocals as unadorned as they probably ever will be. You can just imagine a stadium singing along to the pull-at-your-heart-strings chorus of Perry dramatics.

“Chained to the Rhythm” is like an old 80’s dance tune, with keys up front and a kinetically delivered lyric, while “Bon Appetit” is just too commercial not to tap and sing to, and love. It’s all sexy fast gated-sounds, the best of what we can expect from Perry at this point in her songwriting.

“Pendulum” is more of what I would have liked to have heard. A ‘real’ tune—or as real as things can get here—with piano, bass popping, and strong vocals built on a solid white funk beat.

“Into Me You See” ends, presenting Perry’s weak warble over strikingly well-played piano, and that low-throated growl that modern-day divas think “reveal” real emotion.

Ok stuff here, no surprises though to witness on Witness.