FKA twigs has always been known because of her artistry, her unique visuals and her delicate but quite spectacular voice.
Three years of silence that started after the release of the shatteringly beautiful “Good to Love”, which keep us on trance waiting for her to come back. During these, she had battle not only with a severe health problem (fibroid tumours) that knock out her confidence but also with her own mental health.
This record Magdalene, is the result of an artist that it’s on a golden era, full of confidence and happiness despite what the lyrics of the record are telling about past histories. This is a raw experience of a woman embracing the duality of her gender, or at least what as been preach by religion and sexism during centuries.
Because this record embraces the idea of the multiples layers of a person, you can be a whore or a saint; it doesn’t really matter because you a human being with multiples edges.
This album also breaks your soul on multiple layers, it feels like an out body experience full of pain, love and honesty that is an astonishing goal for FKA twigs, who has been able to reach another dimension mixing her own unique talent and creativity with the golden ages of Kate Bush and Björk creating this humanistic experience full of little details and a prodigious production.
Everything feels so sincere that it touches you on another level, specially FKA twigs vocal delivery which is a striking masterclass of how versatile and pure is her vocal power.
She conducts the raw lyrics of Magdalene into a whole new dimensional experience that feels like an entire life of histories and feelings going through your mind over and over again. There some glorious lyrical moments on “Sad Day”, “Mirrored Heart” and “Home with You” even if the record by himself is an exceptional compilation of how less is more when it comes to emotions and reality.
The vulnerability of the record is essential to understand not only FKA twigs own life experiences but also to comprehend the feelings and the emotional power that it generates inside of the mind of the listener on every single second of the 39 minutes that it has.
Magdalene also shows that she has returned to her roots, to all the experiences and knowledge that she accumulated during her opera training days and the jazz nights. Her voice has become even a more extraordinary instrument that leads the whole record through an impressive range of notes, melodies and memories. On an exquisite, unforgettable journey that not a lot of artists can create with such a splendid and polished result.
Definitely Magdalene is a precious demonstration of how music should be made. From the heart and the truthness of the artist’s own life experiences. Nothing connects and resonates more with the public that real-life experiences that resuscitate past emotions and memories from your mind on an ethereal experience like this.
Best tracks: “Sad Day”, “Fallen Alien”, “Mirrored Heart”, “Mary Magdalene” and “Daybed”
SCORE: 10/10
PS: We’ll assist to her Magdalene Tour in London next November 25th, so stay tuned for some imagery from the show plus a review of it.
Check her interview with Apple Music below apart from her splendid performance for the BBC Radio 1: