The second studio album from UK RnB artist, FKA Twigs, beautifully tells the story of love with all of its desire, delight, and disappointment. With absolutely amazing vocals being its centerpiece, very simple drums, piano, and synth chords complement her style very well. But, with how well it performs those musical keys, that’s all that this album really does. You could listen to one song on the album and basically take in the entire experience of the album.
Track Review:
The album opens very subtly with layered hymnal vocals that emphasize just how talented Twigs is. Spacious drums come in followed by synth chords that build and build into a mash of sounds as the vocals become distorted matching the repetitive vocals of, if I walk out the door it’s the last goodbye/ if you don’t pull back it wakes a thousand eyes. The dozens of reiterations of those lyrics show how hard it is for her to leave until the moment comes and the world becomes distorted.
Home With You is probably the best track on the album with its mashing of verses that are so distorted it’s hard to make the lyrics out and beautiful vocals in the chorus. The instrumental on this track is the best throughout the album. A melodic piano that could be a movie score leads the song as it becomes drowned out with distorted noise and big banging drums.
The song Sad Day really lacks a lot of substance outside of its lyrics, that really don’t go that deep as far as describing unreciprocated desire goes. Again, following the formula of piano that slowly becomes layered underneath synth beats. Not a whole lot to say about this track.
Of all the features that Twigs could have gone with on this album, I really don’t see why Future of all people was given the only one. I could be biased, as I have never been a fan of him. Perhaps Future’s hyper autotuned rap style being a counterpart to Twig’s beautifully raw voice could emphasis the masculine vs feminine difference in love to keep in theme with the album. Nothing really impressed me about this track, from the trap/RnB beat to Twig’s voice that’s all but lost its effect by this point to Future’s very Futurery verse.
Mary Magdalene is the most poetic track on the album. With its ethos speaking on a woman’s role in a relationship and the ability that they hold. She also spoke in an interview about how women’s sexualization relates to the patriarchy as Mary Magdalene was Jesus’ lover and conspiringly, the mother to his children. She wasn’t saying that that was true, but that people would rather call her a whore than credit her to bearing Jesus’ child. She states that that was the start of society controlling the narrative of women and that it is still relevant today.
The sixth track, fallen alien, is another highlight on the album. This track allows it’s synthetic beat to take the lead as her high-pitched shrieking showcases her feeling of being alienated in her relationships. If any song has replayability, it is this one as the production is so ethereal and her borderline rapping is a great change of pace.
The morosity of mirrored heart is very well done, distorted string chords match her groaning so well. Twig’s belts about her reflection after break-up and all of the doubts she has now that she has left. Everything about this song is well done as the instrumental and lyrics both describe her the strength in leaving a relationship as well as the strength in moving on.
Daybed is a very beautiful track, but very boring. Ambient chords persist as she drones on and one with lyric after lyric being [blank] is my [blank] which is in part very poetic but so repetitive for a song that is four and a half minutes long.
The closing track is very melodic, allowing her voice to be the grand finale, but it is still very lackluster for an ending. In cellophane Twigs speaks about how she is almost smothering herself in her relationship as she always feels left short when it comes to reciprocation, why don’t you do it for me/ when all I do is for you. As impactful as the lyrics are, the rhetoric is confusing as the whole album seems to be a homage to moving on from a toxic relationship. You’d expect a big exit as she finally moves on, but this song doesn’t seem to fit any sort of satisfaction, in regards to moving on or going back. Perhaps I don’t get it, I don’t know.
Closing Thoughts:
This album was very good on a first listen through, but its replayability is abysmally low. All of the instrumentals follow a formula of build-up that makes you grow tired of it about halfway through. However, FKA Twigs is one of the best vocalists out right now and her rhetoric on this album is also very moving. This album could be good to throw on in the background but as far as intense listening goes, it falls just short of impressive.
Score: 8.1/12
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