Hi, everyone. Marty Supreme here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new FKA twigs album, EUSEXUA Afterglow.

Here we have a new album from singer and songwriter, dancer FKA twigs, who just released her third official album this year, and that would be EUSEXUA.

Cal Chuchesta: Mesexua?

Where have you been?

Cal: Mesexua?

Yeah...

EUSEXUA. It is one of twigs' most successful, but also oddest album cycles yet, which is saying something because part of this woman's whole brand is that she's most definitely not like the other girls, even down to her original genre categorization of alternative R&B, which she broke onto the scene with back in 2014 on her debut album.

But twigs has diverged into numerous directions creatively since then. And EUSEXUA saw her diving headfirst, with producer Koreless, into electronic dance music with an art pop flair, trying out multiple dance music styles to deliver these heady explorations of sex and desire. With also a random-ass North West feature. It is a banger! I don't care if it doesn't make sense in the tracklist, okay?

Anyway, is EUSEXUA twigs' most consistent and complete vision in my eyes and ears? No. But it's still a fun sensual album that is one of the better pop records I've heard this year, even if it's a bit random. But the EUSEXUA era is actually more unpredictable than I thought.

When we were getting teasers for a EUSEXUA Afterglow, I originally thought, "Okay, this is just going to be standard, deluxe, album-type release. We are just rereleasing the thing, different cover, some extra expanded tracks. That's it." But I couldn't be more wrong because not only is EUSEXUA Afterglow a complete, whole other different album that's different, not the same. But Koreless and twigs also saw fit to release EUSEXUA again with another different cover and basically the same tracklist, but with four songs swapped out and replaced with four others, and also an Eartheater feature on "Striptease."

I guess these tracks were originally part of what was intended to be a pretty standard deluxe version of the album. But instead, twigs has opted for creating a tracklist that Koreless has said on Instagram is actually closer to the original vision of the album. And while I am sad there is no "Childlike Things" as well as "Perfect Stranger" on this version of the record, I do think there is something to representing the album in this way.

The track "Perfectly" is maybe my least favorite of the four editions on this new version of the album because it does reach a bland conclusion toward the finish. "The Dare", though, is a great song that brings more trip hop vibes into the tracklist. Meanwhile, "Got to Feel" is another highlight and has massive Björk energy to it with its passionate lead vocals, jittery electronics. The sound of this one fits a lot more snuggly into the tracklist than "Childlike Things" did for sure. The additional Eartheater vocals on "Striptease" actually makes the finish of the track a lot more epic than it was on the original version of the album.

Then, "Lonely but Exciting Road" to my ears is, hands down, a much better closer. You have a more intense and theatrical vocal performance from twigs, and lyrically, the track does a better job of tying up the album's general themes of independence and exploration. In a way, I actually do think we ended up with a better version of EUSEXUA as a result of these changes.

But when it comes to EUSEXUA Afterglow, this is very much a different, but related experience. From what I understand, twigs has said that EUSEXUA is like the buildup to an orgasm, whereas Afterglow is the feelings that result following.

It is also an eleven track album and has a similar run time. It's a project that is most definitely more chill and low-key at points, which for me personally is definitely a risk, considering how much of a slow burner EUSEXUA already is sonically and emotionally. "Love Crimes," though, does start the album off with a lot of visceral booming techno beats, just thumping kicks, reverb lead vocals. The vibes are frosty. This thing is like a darkly lit warehouse rave in the dead of winter. Cold-hearted, too, with lyrics like, "Hard times call for love crimes," which for sure is quite the statement.

Following this, though, "Slushy" brings the energy down a bit with this art pop inner monologue going on with some dreamy alien synths, faint, skittering percussion. The lyrics read like a robot or intergalactic being learning to exist on Earth, poetically listing all of these surroundings and creature comforts that make life worth living. For sure, it's endearing.

Then there's "Wild and Alone", whose lyrics are very much an extension of the independence themes that are all over EUSEXUA, the need to be unencumbered romantically and personally. The track also features PinkPantheress, but her teaming up with twigs is not necessarily the fireworks display one would hope. Their vocal ranges and respective styles and deliveries on this track are so similar that their singing just melts together inconspicuously. "Hard," though, is a highlight to my ears, a track that is both eerie, groovy, and sensual. One of the drier instrumentals, too. You really feel beat super clearly, and the intensely sexual angle of this track hits that much harder because of it.

"Cheap Hotel," however, is handily the worst song on this album by far. It's like an awkward piece of Grimes worship that is just tediously paced with super shy, distant vocals, hollow production. I mean, it lives up to the title because it feels and sounds like a place where you don't want to be at and you're struggling to find an exit. But the pitch shifted vocal drops are just distracting me.

After this, Afterglow, I think, really struggles to find its footing once again. "Touch a Girl" does have a vibe that is pretty while it's on, but songwriting-wise, it just goes nowhere fast. Meanwhile, "Predictable Girl"'s production leaves a lot to be desired as I don't think its sludgy bass glitch effects and fried, stretched lead vocals are a great pairing. I'm not sure if twigs' vocal inflections on "Sushi" are the move either. Not to mention the chorus vocals are absolutely mangled with these horrid robotic sound effects that make them sound a little out of sync with the beat at points.

In this record's final moments, it continues to tumble downward in terms of energy and execution. In some ways, stylistically, "Piece of Mine" feels like a throwback to twigs' first album, with its spacious left-field R&B style production, twigs' super hushed vocal leads. There are some more bumping grooves than I would have expected on the chorus, but I wouldn't say this track necessarily makes me feel like she's rekindled this sound or anything like that. If anything, this track just serves to me as a reminder that doing what she did on EUSEXUA, and pushing forward and continuing to experiment and change her sound up, was the right move.

Then I guess "Lost All My Friends" is literally, in a way, a tale of, I don't know, either drug-induced amnesia or just, on its face, losing your friends at the club while you're having a night out. I don't know. I mean, while it is a reality of the surroundings, aesthetically and musically, that very much inspired this album for twigs, obviously, it's not a theme or an idea that I think she digs much gold out of.

Then we have the closing track, "Stereo Boy", which I have seen a lot of people hyping up. This song, unfortunately, did not really live up to my expectations. I do like that this track, among many others on the record, does see twigs experimenting with her vocals quite a bit, really embracing her English accent and giving us an affectation that feels like it's rooted in some big chart-topping '80s dramatic synth-pop ballad with the simple little guitar intervals that serve as the backbone of the whole tune.

But outside of that, the other bits of instrumentation on this track are horrid. The slightly detuned synthesizers, the loose, lumbering beats, and the bass that is stretched and distorted to the point where it just is wantonly revving all over the track randomly and adding nothing to the song other than just some grating background noise. I mean, in a sense, I get it. It's not like there isn't long history of pop and rock songs that try to essentially emphasize or highlight how uncomfortable or dark or unhappy the lyrical themes behind the track are by surrounding the tune with instrumentation that is unpleasant. But twigs and her collaborators, in my opinion on this track, just took it so far, they made the song sound like a complete mess and borderline unlistenable. Even if I do think the lyrics at the core of this whole track are pretty cool.

But yeah, unfortunately, I am not really all that crazy about EUSEXUA Afterglow. It sounds like a bunch of experimental afterthoughts where twigs and her collaborators were just trying a bunch of random stuff, throwing whatever at the wall to see what would stick. Some of it does, a lot of it doesn't.

But even if I'm getting this extra, afterthought album here from twigs that I'm not super crazy about, I can't even really complain that much because this extra batch of tracks I don't think is indicative of the future of FKA twigs. Again, it just feels like extras.

In addition to that, along with this album, I got a better version of the original record with a new revamped tracklist that, again, I think is an improvement. I mean, a couple of tracks from this I think are really good and a better version of EUSEXUA itself. That's sick.

In one breath, while I do personally feel like I'm at about a light 5 for EUSEXUA Afterglow, I could easily see myself putting the new version of EUSEXUA here at a light 9, and I think I can leave it there.

Anthony Fantano, FKA twigs, Forever.