- Today, BANKS returns with her third LP, the aptly named iii. The LA based singer-songwriter sprints furiously out of the gates with Til Now and lead single Gimme. Both nocturnal, claustrophobic and initially jarring, the tracks juxtapose industrial, crunching synths and bone rattling bass against BANKS’ hymnal vocals.
Reprieve doesn’t arrive until third track Contaminated opens. Sparse, mid-tempo production blooms, softening the angular chaos she opens the thirteen track LP with.
Number four, Stroke, examines a toxic relationship. Lyrics “Say it’s hard to breathe inside my ocean / I give you the deep but you’re still floating . You would let me drown to save your own life / Don’t think I can’t see your soul is soaking’’ frame pulsating bass, as hypnotic as it is distorted, before suddenly switching gears and opening up into a funky, '80’s inspired dance break.
The record explodes like a pop supernova, shining with polished production and dancefloor ready singles. While anthemic sizzlers like Look What You’re Doing To Me (feat. Francis And The Lights and Propaganda provide heady peaks throughout the track list, the album feels top heavy, petering out and never quite reaching the dizzying highs of early tracks Gimme or Godless.
BANKS' most powerful weapon in her sonic cache is her ethereal voice. Her ability to manipulate it from a hushed whimper to a defiant war cry is the cornerstone of iii. Moments of vulnerability are generously peppered throughout the record, though sometimes lost under layers of production. While the dark of the instrumentation and light of the vocal arrangements on iii is what makes the record compelling, the heavy handed production can sometimes feel suffocating.
In both its strengths and its weaknesses, BANKS has made an album for the darkest reaches of empty dancefloors, those places we refuse to leave. It's also for the hard truths we cannot face. She’s created a grimy pop universe to get lost in -it's impossible not to- and one where it’s okay to not want to be found.
- Fiona Priddey.