Check out the public output of the artist-still-kinda-known as Christine and the Queens and one emoji keeps cropping up: three drops of water, mid-arc. It’s fitting imagery for Chris. Sweat so noticeable as to be impeccably framed, so blue as to be pure. Chris is a hot, sultry album, one to put on when you’ve already been dancing through a long afternoon and need a second wind. It’s an album for endurance, no dips or dives, just a steady and beating pulse of synths and sex.

By no means is it boring: Chris swoops and soars. Subterranean gloom builds into something cascading and enveloping on What’s-her-face; a bassline warps and shimmers on infectious “crisis single” Doesn’t Matter. This is an album that navigates the ambiguous waters of sexuality and identity, relationships and selfhood, with a steady, sure hand. It’s been a long, hot summer, made for wading through endless afternoons. Chris rewards the effort.

Mikaella Clements