Review: Katy Perry's 'Prism' honors spirit and flesh

The last place you might expect to find Katy Perry is lying on the bathroom floor, apparently contemplating suicide.

Yet there she is, in By the Grace the God, a surprisingly stark, stately track on Prism (*** out of four, out Tuesday), Perry's follow-up to Teenage Dream, the 2010 sophomore effort that secured her status as the reigning queen of feel-good pop.

"Thought I wasn't enough/ Found I wasn't so tough," Perry sings. But then the tone shifts to something more inspirational. Perry picks herself up; "I looked in the mirror and decided to stay," she declares.

That pretty much sums up the message of Prism, which finds Perry stretching herself beyond the sugar-coated sparkle of Dream in search of higher forms of empowerment. There is a self-consciously spiritual vibe to some of the material; on the sitar-laced Legendary Lovers, she asks a new partner to "say my name like a scripture."