Banks Is A Goddess

 ALBUM OF THE WEEK 

BANKS | GODDESS

The last few years have hardly been short of the hazy, drone-like R&B outsourced from some of the brightest producers from the left-field electronic world. With its appropriation of hip hop's symbolism and drugged out aesthetic, vocals pitched down, warped into dreary mumblings as the beats they labour over disintegrate into abstract glitches and passing references to the genres they originally stem from. In a period where the lifeless drone and fatalistic chic of Lana Del Rey has crossed over into the type of mainstream appeal that warrants hordes of Tumblr posts with Young & Beautiful lyrics plasted over unrelated shots of nebulae and grayscale palm trees; one can't help but feel a sense of fatigue even before having pressed play on Goddess's first track. 

Backed in the production department by Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Lil Silva, Sohn and Shlohmo but to name a few, Goddess is not without its bright moments where Banks rises to the occasion, resulting in the restrained, Sunday afternoon flirtation that is Warm Water or the pulsing ballad of Waiting Game. In typical Shlohmo fashion, Brain immediately sets off into moody, synth-laden R&B territory with This Is What Feels Like flexing into more generic hip hop contortions. 

Where Banks shone on her London EP, due in part to its length allowing for a measured dosage of the warm sultriness of her voice paired with slow burning and often brooding atmospherics; that same aesthetic lingers on the side of testing over the longer album format, proving a somewhat drawn-out experience at certain points.

Perhaps Goddess's greatest misfortune is having to co-exist with the now Mercury Prize nominated debut album from FKA Twigs LP1 which traverses similar terrain, instead with an intensely sensual sense of purpose and jarring, sparse production, leaving one to ponder whether it is perhaps a truer embodiment of a title like Goddess.

Tracklist Banks Goddess :

1. Alibi

2. Goddess

3. Waiting Game

4. Brain

5. This Is What It Feels Like

6. You Should Know Where I'm Coming From

7. Stick

8. Fuck Em Only We Know

9. Drowning

10. Beggin For Thread

11. Change

12. Someone New

13. Warm Water

14. Under The Table

Deluxe Edition:

15. And I Drove You Crazy

16. Fall Over

17. Before I Ever Met You

18. Bedroom Wall