This week’s releases include a career highlight from Fiona Apple, a captivating debut from Rina Sawayama, and a third go-around from OVO’s dvsn.
Fiona Apple Fetch the Bolt Cutters
“Fetch the bolt cutters!”
In a pivotal scene from BBC psychodrama The Fall, detective superintendent Stella Gibson has finally zeroed in on the collapsing shack where kidnap victim Rose Stagg is being held. A member of the search team scrambles and delivers the cutters to Gibson, who snaps the rusty chains binding the door. As the team races in, the adrenaline rush suddenly plummets - Rose Stagg is not there. It’s a gutting twist to The Fall’s saga, a tale of mutual obsession between Gibson and serial killer Paul Spector, and a marvelous assay of our culture’s fixation on violence against women.
Enter Fiona Apple. On her first studio album since 2012, the legendary singer/songwriter reemerges in ultimate form, wit intact and pointed as ever. Fetch the Bolt Cutters draws on themes of modern womanhood, a howling incarnation of Stella Gibson’s universal plight as an impossibly strong-willed woman in a man’s world.
Musically, Bolt Cutters retains the primal ferocity of 2012’s The Idler Wheel, reeling as Fiona pounds, screeches and tears through her characters. But where that album carved suffocating spaces out of anxiety and rage, Bolt Cutters feels like a prism of human emotion, at times joyous, fun, unhinged, grief-stricken, and yes, furious. The eight years since Apple’s last outing have been weighty ones, bearing the rising tide of #MeToo, the election of Donald Trump, and of course, an unprecedented pandemic. It’s hard not to view Bolt Cutters as a response, and Fiona holds the mantle impeccably, molding microcosmic soundscapes out of all-too-familiar struggles.
Every song here is a highlight, even if that’s no novel feat for Apple - she’s widely celebrated for her full-fledged, fleshed-out explorations in the deep ends of the psyche. Opener “I Want You to Love Me” channels the catharsis of previous kick-offs like Tidal’s acid-bitten “Sleep to Dream” and Idler Wheel’s fabulously manic “Every Single Night.” Its deep longing to feel seen reaches into “Shameika” and the title track, both of which reflect poignantly on the trappings of developing self-image in a society built to tear women down. The album reaches its apex in its latter half, steeped in the breathtaking imagery of “Cosmonauts” and the trauma-bonding epic of “Newspaper.”
Its closing moments, however, summarize best what makes Bolt Cutters a definitive cultural moment. “For Her” is an utterly terrifying account of rape and emotional abuse, rattling in its fixed-glare honesty. Closing number “On I Go” is downright otherworldly, twisting a chanted refrain into the album’s ultimate ethos: even when times have never been harder, we’ve gotta keep moving forward, if for no other reason than to keep moving. Fetch the Bolt Cutters has arrived exactly when we need it most, reminding us that our deepest struggles often make for our most important revelations. A
Rina Sawayama SAWAYAMA
On her full-length debut, rising pop star Rina Sawayama builds a towering monument to self-empowerment, draped upon a scaffolding of her wide-ranging influences. Across SAWAYAMA, the British singer leans into her wildest inclinations, seasoned with gutsy vocal flourishes and dramatic key changes. The album is often rewarded for its bold stylistic choices - opener “Dynasty” recalls the resilient grandeur of Christina Aguilera’s “Fighter” in its marriage to pummeling hard rock, and the thrashing nu-metal of “STFU!” is creative and cheeky. Highlight “Comme Des Garçon” even cribs the slinky funk of Mr. Fingers’ house classic “Can You Feel It” to brilliant effect.
That said, SAWAYAMA sometimes succumbs to the weight of its creative fore-bearers. Rina’s vocal stylings are heavily indebted to those of pop iconoclast Britney Spears, and the legend is clearly a guiding force here. “XS” draws on Britney & Madonna collab “Me Against the Music,” but winds up with little more than a passable recreation. Gothic closer “Snakeskin,” while a fascinating listen, falls into the weird-for-weird’s-sake of Born This Way-era Lady Gaga. Oddly enough, the tracks where she hews closest to current trends are some of the most enlightening - she finds self-acceptance on the infectious “Love Me 4 Me” and addresses self-destructive habits on the broken “Bad Friend.”
The best moments occur when Rina steps out from behind her tapestry of influences. The specter of her familial lineage permeates the album’s thematic core, shedding light on Sawayama’s unique perspective. One of the most affecting moments here arrives in electropop stomper “Paradisin,” a reflection on her troubled childhood: “I went and messed up again/went against everything you said/summer of drinking in Trafalgar Square, yeah, yeah/then you threaten to send me to boarding school for the seventh time/I know we can't afford that, so I'm fine.” SAWAYAMA’s emotional peak arrives in penultimate cut “Chosen Family,” where she sheds the toxicity of her family environment and finds belonging in community.
Above all else, SAWAYAMA thrives as a warts-and-all self-portrait, relentlessly creative and often superb. It feels like a transformation in real time, a thoughtful weighing of circumstance and personal freedom. Here, Rina comes out on top, marbled wings on full display. C+
dvsn A Muse in Her Feelings
The Canadian duo’s third studio album feels like a celebration, bursting with star-studded features and lustrous production work. A departure from the icy solitude of dvsn’s previous releases (the masterful SEPT 5th and worthy follow-up Morning After), A Muse in Her Feelings vibrates with a club-wise buoyancy, weaving Daniel Daley’s poignant falsetto into the lattices of Nineteen85’s strobe-lit instrumentation. There are moments of true shock here: album centerpiece “Keep It Going” breaks into a Baltimore club-indebted throb, and Snoh Aalegra collaboration “Between Us” breathes new life into Usher’s era-stamped “Nice & Slow.” The ultimate pull, however, remains Daley’s chemistry with his producer - four years apart from their debut, dvsn continues to craft some of the most enthralling and affecting R&B around. C