FKA twigs - MAGDALENE (Review)

FKA twigs has had one of the most turbulent careers of any artist, but after fighting through extensive medical problems and battling a severe breakup she's finally back with new music, and there's no denying it's her most emotive and tortured to date - but is it her best?

Over five years on from her acclaimed debut, twigs has gone through more than most artists do in much longer spans of time. All the same, you can feel the difference in time from that last album and this one and it's great to have such a creative presence back in the scene.

If there's one thing this album is being praised for it's the narrative above all else. twigs's songwriting and storytelling is the most compelling it's ever been and her strange imagery and metaphors contribute to an intriguing lyrical experience that is undeniably the highlight of the album and very consistent throughout, even when the music is not. Even when a song doesn't offer any fundamental differences to the one that came before it, she finds a way to present her pain and longing in a new and intriguing way to keep it from getting stale, and the progression throughout the record is definitely something to behold.

There are moments of passion, of anger, of guilt, self-loathing and despair that make up the devastation of the aftermath of a breakup that, along with all the medical turmoil she's been through, makes up what has to be one of the most emotionally potent albums I've ever heard. The pain is all in her voice, and it's only improved since that first album. Despite the very publicised nature of her split from Robert Pattinson, she's been out of the spotlight for so long and she has more than enough content to deliver and never runs out of steam. In fact the album reaches a sort of boiling point on the phenomenal standout "Fallen Alien", a savage display of all her emotions honed in and focused in the form of spite and loathing at how presumably Robert has treated her and made her feel.

This track is the volta of the album, and in many ways the centrepiece. Its beat is the hardest, matching the intense aggression of the lyrics to enhance the view of the situation we're presented with. It provides a relieving contrast from the admittedly otherwise similarly midtempo plodding of almost every other song. Whilst this is not necessarily an issue there are a couple of songs that, due to their longer builds and steady crescendos, are not as immediate or musically engaging from the get-go. Overall though, every song does offer its own at least semi-unique qualities and features that contributes to a listening experience I wouldn't call exciting or necessary thrilling, but more hauntingly painful and emotionally raw. It's a spectacle of sorts, art that causes somewhere between a morbid curiosity and a tearful affair.

The Future-featuring "holy terrain", with its incredibly repetitive rattling hip-hop beat, lofi synths and overall generic ambience is a track that I shouldn't really like as much as I do; it's the most basic song on here by far, both instrumentally and lyrically, and yet I can't help feeling the groove and somehow getting into the weak rhythm provided by that oh so predictable drum machine. No, the song I end up favouring the least is the other single, the ambitious ballad "home with you", primarily as a result of the extremely grating vocal effects and climax that just doesn't compel me as much as any other song on here. The comparison I'm about to make is incredibly unfair and exaggerated, but in the same way that Lewis Capaldi oversings without the skills nor context to justify it, twigs goes overboard and loses the dynamics and textural qualities of her instrumentals and vocals, compromising the potency of the theme of the lyrics and ruining the song.

MAGDALENE is going to go down as one of the best and most expressive and experimental releases of the year, and for the most part I do agree with this opinion even if there are a couple of songs that don't stick the landing. It's an album that can be hard to define as it floats between the grounded realism and metaphoric hyperbole, and it can get lost inbetween at times. Conclusively, I am in awe of what this album does achieve as some of the weirdest "antipop" pop music of the year. By no means does she have the capacity to reach the commercial highs of Billie Eilish, but it's satisfying seeing it garner as much critical acclaim as it has and I expect to see it on many Year End lists this month and next. Overall, as a result of what I do appreciate and enjoy (in some branch of the word) in this album, I can give it a strong 7 out of 10.

Best Songs:
fallen alien; sad day; mary magdalene; mirrored heart; cellophane; thousand eyes
Worst Songs: home with you; daybed

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"MAGDALENE"
FKA twigs

08/11/2019

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