While sultry, drug-addled R&B is an increasingly crowded genre, Twigs takes a hammer to the kind that The Weeknd made famous and plays in the rubble.
She exerts enough of a magnetic pull to lure listeners into some challenging territory: LP1 is sparing with its hooks, favoring texture over melody.
FKA Twigs' music was already so fully realized that LP 1 can't really be called Barnett coming into her own; rather, her music has been tended to since the "Water Me" days, and now it's flourishing.
Twigs’ superb vocal melodies anchor LP1’s flights of experimentation. Were they to be stripped from the album’s bizarre flourishes and dropped into a commercial R&B context, they would stun nonetheless.
More than anything this feels universally appealing. You don't have to be a strict devotee of the R&B underground genre to realise that this is a great album. The sound is her own, and she's capable of making an album work as an album rather than just a collection of songs
With both immediate appeal and density that demands long-term digestion, it’s one of those rare debuts that manifests a fully-grown, deeply engaging sound.
Few debuts possess such control and ambition all in one; LP1 is the rare album that manages to sound both lived in and completely futuristic.
Confidently frail and hesitant, LP1 is a refreshing reaction to, and a calm assault upon, the unfathomably fast-paced total noise of the current age.
LP1 is a fantastic debut from an artist who is quickly becoming the curator of her own mental museum.
It’s not a record that’ll smack you in the face with bolsh and pace, and so in the inevitable repeated listens, as you listen harder, you’ll find yourself scurrying through various interpretations of the lyrics
The truth is ... that we wouldn’t be having this conversation if her image and message weren’t just an engrossing addition to the captivating, envelope-pushing, and wholly original piece of art she has made with LP1.
A true original, LP1 sees FKA twigs breaking from the doctrine of the mainstream to hone a style that could reach canonical status.
The mysterious Tahliah Barnett has created a devastatingly beautiful and industrial debut, and hopefully we’ll have her for many filtered out synths and dive bombed metronomes to come.
Every note sung on LP1 is delivered with meaning, the clinical production never contaminating the sincerity on offer.
The album doesn't so much broaden Twigs' scope as reinforce it. Over 10 songs and 42 minutes, Twigs seems unconcerned with minting easy hooks or delivering discrete moments; instead, she sustains vibe.
‘LP1’ is an exceptional debut. Spellbinding and artful from the off, she manages to tap into something in her mid-twenties that not many people manage in a lifetime.
Quiet as it may be, this is a huge album, a monumental debut. On a formal level, it takes the kinds of risks that few pop artists, and few "experimental" artists, for that matter, are willing to take these days.
This might be FKA twigs' first full-length, but it demands attention. She's bringing influences from every corner of the musical globe and turning them into something cohesive and wonderful.
Certainly FKA Twigs has her own unique brand of R&B, which touches on experimental pop with some ethereal Kate bush vibes thrown in too. Talking about young love and insecurities, she does so in a fresh, exciting way.
LP1 isn’t anything revolutionary; it’s a frankly expressed project focused on the dualism between love and lust, reality and fantasy.
Even at its most vulnerable ... LP1 is a hugely self-possessed debut, the work of an artist whose vision – not only her visual sense – is strong.
LP1 is stylish and substantial, thanks to Barnett's striking voice and beats that sound as if they're transmitting from another planet.
FKA Twigs' debut album showcases the UK-based singer's most coherent songs yet; creatively mashing together contemporary R&B with art pop and experimental hip hop-style production.
Barnett's music is the latest chapter in the ongoing transatlantic vogue for barely-there R&B, and this album joins her two previously released EPs in providing the subgenre with new heights.
All this sonic delirium shockingly coalesces into genuinely captivating hooks and stunningly sensual atmospherics.
She gets her kicks plenty across LP1 - lines like “I could kiss you for hours” and “only thing left to do is each other” made refrains - but rarely does it seem cool.
Fragile, heavenly and utterly compelling; this debut paves the way for boundaries-pushing pop. This is music that shatters you with a single tap.
Over the course of the 10 tracks here FKA twigs often leaves you enraptured, however, what’s arguably even more promising is the sense that this fascinating artist can go in any sort of direction from here and achieve even greater heights.
The record’s successes, its thrills and intimations of where FKA twigs could go with more time and cash on hand, more than make up for its weak spots. She’s not quite there yet, but it seems FKA twigs might actually be the next generation pop star we’ve been promised for so long.
This pervading sense of control and commitment to her art proves that Twigs is set on building the sound of the future all by herself.
There is no single powerful element that obscures the other through LP1, however, and Bartlett’s previous EP proves this is still very much her singular vision.
LP1 is far from perfect, but its consistency of tone, its thematic rigour and its commitment to developing a musical grammar all of its own serve to override these momentary weaknesses.
‘LP1’ is a brave first step that she had to take. It’s not perfect, but anything this expressive and personally vital rarely is.
In the end, LP1 is probably the most singular pop album of the year. It's testament to how emotionally affecting one person's realised vision can be.
It reads like a whispered confessional; a generous and sure-footed adventure whose studio smarts (snappy beats, exquisitely detailed backing) provide foundation for a unique and thrilling new voice.
Her brilliant debut album is a collection of forward-thinking electro-R&B tracks packed with unexpected sonic details
LP1 is more than just a confident debut album. It's primordial in a way that Björk herself has often attempted but frequently short-circuited letting her cognizance get in the way.
When the tunes match the invention of the production, LP1 is genuinely brilliant.
These songs are undoubtedly sexy and sexual, but some shuddering darkness seems attached to each track.
Twigs' deconstructed shards of U.K. grime and garage land heavier, while elegiac vocals soften the songs without blunting their edge.
There are some excellent tracks here – ‘Lights On’, ‘Two Weeks’, ‘Pendulum’ – and her talent is obvious, but the men at the production desk could perhaps have been braver.
LP1 is a solid, fully confident pop album built from the same blocks that formed her previous release, which nevertheless forgoes the bewilderingly alien quality of her best work.
So kind by twigs to travel into the future and bring us some rnb from 2050!!
Another fantastic album by the queen herself. I've been really getting into FKA twigs recently even more then I did in the past, After I heard her latest mixtape, And I wanted to dive deeper into her discography. So I returned again to MAGDALENE which I've already heard in the past and it really grew on me, However I wanted to review this album as well and then I will rereview MAGDALENE very soon.
I Will say right ... read more
I was in an insatiable music mood - not even Marvin Gaye was working - and this was the only thing that appeased my appetite. Twigs is a master of blending two typically contrasting sounds into something desirable and absolutely stunning.
‘Two Weeks’ is probably one of the best songs I’ve ever listened to in the entire span of my 16 years of life.
Music that transcends its own space and time. It was ahead of its time in 2014, and still is now. Very few albums can make you feel the way this one does.
fka twigs is a master genre blender
this album breaks all traditional standards for rnb, one day we will look upon it as far ahead of its time
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