review By Isabella Vega

“I used to laugh to myself about how, as a woman, your story is often attached to the narrative of a man. No matter what you’re doing or how great your work is, sometimes it’s as though you have to be attached to a man to be validated. I’d felt like that at times. And then I started to read about Mary Magdalene and how amazing she was; how she was likely to have been Jesus’s best friend, his confidante. She was an herbalist and healer, but, you know, her story is written out of the bible and she was ‘a prostitute’. I found a lot of power in the story of Mary Magdalene; a lot of dignity, a lot of grace, a lot of inspiration.” - FKA Twigs for i-D, September 2019 

The long-awaited return of the songstress of R & B is finally here. In her latest album, Magdalene, FKA Twigs explores the relationship between herself and her past lover, and how one can fit in the concept of love into themself. She finds solace in the biblical character, Mary Magdalene, and weaves together her tears into a masterful painting of the emotions behind one of the core facets of our humanity: love and all its complexities. 

thousand eyes - 5:00 

The prologue of any album gives you a taste of what’s to come; thousand eyes shows the beginning of the end of the album’s story. The sound is breathy and angelic, with a sole beat accompanying Twigs’ voice, which is at first reminiscent of a medieval madrigal, while the end morphing into something even bigger. Twigs sings about the “thousand eyes” awakening when her lover does not reciprocate her affection, being the eyes a part of her spiritual being, notifying her of her need to connect with herself again, or the “eyes” of the public, which almost dare her to leave in their voraciously hungry search for a story to tell. The layering of voices builds the tension of the subject deciding to leave or stay with her lover. 

home with you - 3:45 

home with you is the emotional starting point for this work. The subject is a broken record, dizzy from off their sadness, and still willing to forfeit their heart if their love came back. One is lost in this stream of consciousness, a piano part only accompanies the words projecting out of the voice one never knew could sound this loud, this distorted, and one wonders vaguely who made one like this. The lyrics are both self-apologetic and lonely, a rock-bottom moment for the reader to realize they need to find me in the us. 

sad day - 4:16 

The visual of Twigs standing next to an open door, face half-concealed, wrapped in a jacket seems to say it all. Tender, nostalgic, longing. The track practically begs for a lovers’ affections as one desperately watches them slip away from oneself with no control over how or why it happens. The track continues on with the breathy vocal style, but adds in electronic elements to make the chorus demonstrate the profoundness of the sadness, with hopes of climbing out of the hole. 

holy terrain - 4:03 

The most emotionally messy track on this album is the one with the most imagery harkening title. holy terrain shows a lost person, walking and feeling through various people in order to feel more whole in oneself. The beat is danceable, something that stands out in this album, however the sadness behind the lyrics harkens back to home with you, wherein saying goodbye may just be easier than saying hello. 

mary magdalene - 5:21 

           The title track of the work doubles as the emotional climax.The beat is hypnotizing, luring you into the story one note at a time. The track is almost playful in its wording, which first takes on a way to show how a woman is viewed by a man, as some sort of pick me up, to be used whenever needed. However, Twigs calls on the memory of Mary Magdalene, a "creature of desire" to find wholeness in oneself. The religious imagery is especially interesting when noting about Mary Magdalene's place in the bible, a person whom had committed a sin multiple times, she was not as "clean" as the other followers of Jesus were. However, she proves to be Jesus' most loyal follower and confidant, right until the end. She is the only person willing to wash Jesus' feet, a job saved for the very bottom of society. It shows that though women were expected less, they always delivered more. It shows a connection between a holy figure and a wholly figure, a grey connection that seems to never exist in a world of black and white. 

 fallen alien - 3:59 

           From the point of mary magdalene on, each track seems to have a lighter air to it, since the subject of the story has now found peace within themselves. Fallen alien shows a sort of diss track to the lover left behind, while also examining the subject's search for love as it pertains to themselves. The lover is turned into a liar, an ugly thing who used the precious subject to better themselves. As Twigs has mentioned in the press for this album, she always dreamed of having a Prince come sweep her off her feet, a classic story young girls aspire to. The line is put into a religious context with "In this age of Satan//I'm searching for a light to take me home and guide me out". Its accepting that this dream can come with all of its happiness, even for a reader who isn’t the norm. 

mirrored heart - 4:33 

            mirrored heart continues with the musicality of lighter beats. The theme of the song, however, is interesting. The concept of hearts is prevalent in the Catholic faith, but taking a heart and its mirror image, the two will never be the same, always destined to be different, and it may create conflict. This theme is explored in the track and in the wording, which details a lover having . 

daybed - 4:32 

daybed returns the heavy sound from the beginning of the album, reading almost like a private sonnet. The structure of the song is mystifying to listen to, with Twigs’ voice soaring through each word as if it both pains and delights her.  

cellophane - 3:24 

Cellophane, the closing track to the album, recaps the subject’s journey of love. It reads much like a closing to a movie, in which she carefully wraps her memories of the lover in a box in the attic of her soul, never to seek pain from, only to find comparison to.  

Magdalene is a spectacularly messy ode to grieving, taking place in what we feel most comfortable with, the religions which validate our existence, within whom we feel most comfortable with, the person existing in a grey area, so as to make us feel holy without being whole. 

review by Reese Gorman

Once a year there is an album which blows all expectations out of the water. With no release since 2016 and no album since 2014, FKA twigs was virtually in hibernation. But when she awoke from her metaphorical slumber, she hit the ground running. 

Magdalene is her best work yet, written in a time of deep sorrow after her relationship with a teen superstar was publicly ridiculed and when she was expected not to mention the recovery she had to go through after the removal of fibroids from her uterus. All these events taking place caused her to be highly introspective. 

These situations caused her to find solace in the story of Mary Magdalene, hence the album title. Magdalene was the most misunderstood character of the New Testament; she was looked down upon by the many men of her day, yet Jesus accepted her and gave her hope. 

The album begins with twigs singing amongst an ancient church choir on “thousand eyes.” This song is followed by arguably the angriest track on the album, “home with you.” This track builds from a slight whisper up to a ferocious-sounding track attacking her former partner in an auto-tuned rant. When the chorus hits, she seems to partially acknowledge her wrongdoing, “I didn’t know that you were lonely/ If you had just told me, I’d be home with you.” Then the rant starts all over again, this time leading to a much bigger climax. 

Twigs teams up with Future on the anthem “holy terrain.” Twigs is searching for a man who fits what she wants, someone not like her ex and someone who deserves her and who she is, not someone who takes her for granted. 

The cinematic masterpiece that is “cellophane” sounds as if it is straight out of the Anne Hathaway scene of Les Misérables. The track is the perfect ending to a near perfect album. In this song especially, her voice is magnificent. You can hear she is on the brink of tears throughout the entire song, yet she keeps herself composed and provides us with a beautiful piece of work. Amongst all the anger-fueled melodies in this vulnerable piece of art, she depicts that even though she is angry, she is still hurt. We are shown just how much this past relationship, mixed in with all the scrutiny she received, truly messed her up.  

Arguably this album belongs in a movie—no, scratch that—this album deserves to have its own movie. This is such a sensational piece of art which changed the game. Twigs’ cross-genre style is something which leaves you awestruck and infatuated, wanting more. If the year were to end today, this album would be No. 1 on my list of favorites for 2019.  

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