In Texas last month before the coronavirus shut down touring, one fan at an Yves Tumor concert got a little too excited. “He bit me on my neck!” said the musician (real name: Sean Bowie) by phone. “I was signing his album after the show and was like, ‘Why did you bite me? There’s a pandemic going on.’ He said he just wanted to know what I tasted like.”

Mixing it up with the audience is part of the Yves Tumor proposition. Bowie, who uses both gender-neutral and he/him pronouns, is a master of anarchic energy with plenty of stories about bloodying fans’ noses at shows. (They never seemed to mind.) The Yves Tumor sound has frequently shifted since Bowie started releasing albums in 2015, encompassing cacophonous electronic noise and smoky rhythm & blues. Some of the music has been so confrontational, it’s even caused its creator some concern: They said they find “Hope in Suffering (Escaping Oblivion & Overcoming Powerlessness),” a 2018 track that begins with what sounds like a gathering swarm of bees before collapsing into machine-gun blasts and a demonic voice, almost too “terrifying” to listen to.

The latest Yves Tumor album, “Heaven to a Tortured Mind,” which was released on Friday, veers closer to standard pop. It’s an album of (relatively) approachable tracks about the common push and pull of the heart, blending tart psychedelia and maximal glam rock. Though earlier work relied on software and samples, here Bowie mostly used live instrumentation. They produced the album along with Justin Raisen, known for a deft hand with both big pop refrains and fuzzy guitar grit in work for Kim Gordon, Angel Olsen and Sky Ferreira. A number of notable vocalists turn up for steamy duets, including the progressive cellist Kelsey Lu and Julia Cumming of the Brooklyn indie band Sunflower Bean.