FKA twigs - MAGDALENE
Critic Score
Based on 35 reviews
2019 Ratings: #6 / 805
Year End Rank: #2
User Score
2019 Rank: #8All Time: #428
Liked by 1,144 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
musicOMH

Magdalene is an album that, like FKA twigs herself, defies both genre and classification.

100
Evening Standard

What’s most extraordinary here is her singing voice, from a cloudbusting falsetto on Mirrored Heart to fevered shouting on the appropriately titled Fallen Alien and an eerie whisper on Daybed. There’s something new and exciting around every hairpin bend. Magdalene allows her to stand alone as an exceptional artist.

100
Spill Magazine

Magdalene goes beyond earthy boundaries and transcends to a celestial realm of greatness, guided by the “fallen alien” – FKA twigs.

100
The Telegraph
It is erotic and neurotic, confounding and revelatory, summoning the spirits of such iconoclastic talents as David Bowie, Kate Bush and Björk while affirming its own unique personality.
100
Loud and Quiet

MAGDALENE is as holistically complete as any pop record released this decade ... an exceptional and empowering account of an artist in full control of their sound.

100
The Skinny

By processing the physical and emotional pain she's experienced, FKA twigs’ new album MAGDALENE operates as a purging of all her heartbreak.

100
No Ripcord
It’s a record that makes you fall in love with music again, a record you feel privileged to experience and a record that imparts fundamental human truths.
100
NME
Tahliah Barnett's been to tabloid hell and back and experienced gruelling ill-health, all of which is explored on her huge, panoramic second album.
94
Pitchfork

With limitlessly innovative songwriting and production, the cinema of twigs’ music has never been more affecting. MAGDALENE is not just on the vanguard of pop, it’s in a breathtaking class of its own.

90
Uncut
There's a defiance in each painful note. In tasting despair, Tahliah Barnett has returned 10 times stronger--in spirit and voice.
90
PopMatters

Magdalene makes an unpredictable turn wherein FKA twigs traverses an introverted dimension of her vision through a minimalist perspective and a sense of controlled extravagance.

90
Highsnobiety

MAGDALENE is the album that twigs was destined to create. That such a blessing came out of so much trauma is a tragedy, but what a privilege it is to witness such a miraculous period of growth.

90
FLOOD Magazine

MAGDALENE dances along without ever dipping into easy catharsis, consumed with pain but unwavering in its determination to fight through it.

90
AllMusic

Like the dancer she is, Barnett pushes through pain in pursuit of beauty and truth, and the leaps she makes are breathtaking.

90
Crack Magazine

Directly contrasting the cohesion of her previous releases, the veritable tapestry of sounds woven into MAGDALENE is among the album’s most rewarding assets.

90
Slant Magazine

The album is a knotty meditation on the process of separating self-perception from public perception, and of twigs’s reclamation of her body and work as hers and hers alone.

90
Exclaim!

In portrait mode, Magdalene tears down the metaphorical walls — aurally, visually, physically — to build back up a wholly realized self.

90
Sputnikmusic

To put Magdalene in context, it’s clear that FKA Twigs has created her best album so far. It combines the addicting complexity of M3LL155X’s production aesthetics with the more elaborate and thoughtful songwriting of LP1.

90
The Line of Best Fit
It is an unsparing, anguished release in which we see an artist laid bare and tapping into a more natural and resonant version of her sound and self. It is the fullest and most developed work from FKA Twigs to date.
87
Paste

MAGDALENE is the sound of an artist gluing together the million tiny shards in which she found herself after an explosive breakup.

85
Northern Transmissions

Never rushed yet often urgent, MAGDALENE is a work of great tension and balance. It never falls into complacency, and it’s never indulgent.

80
The Arts Desk
The title song reflects today’s understanding of the much-maligned apostle as proto feminist – fully a sensual woman and powerful with it.
80
Under the Radar

MAGDALENE might not be perfect, but it reverberates with the sound of someone shutting the door on a difficult chapter in their life.

80
DIY

Sometimes, there is the feeling that less could have been more, but when everything aligns, there are true moments of wonder to be found.

80
Spectrum Culture

With this gorgeous, gripping, thought-provoking album, she continues her enigmatic, glass ceiling-smashing trajectory thanks to some spectacular vocal performances and updating the sonic templates left to her by her forebears.

80
The Observer

The inner battles of Magdalene will stay with you long after they finish.

80
Q Magazine
This is a record of real substance.
80
The Independent

The follow-up to 2014’s LP1, made in the wake of heartbreak, is twigs at her sorrowful, scrappy best.

80
The Irish Times
Five years after her debut, this album is a rebirth for a most unpredictable artist.
80
Clash
The sound of someone delicately yet decisively knitting themselves back together...
80
Rolling Stone
UK pop futurist conjures struggle while curating a killer creative team.
75
Consequence of Sound

While concise in length, MAGDALENE paces FKA twigs through the unguarding of her traumas, ceremoniously giving way for her next act.

70
The Needle Drop

For all its impassioned vocal performances and effective updates on the forms of Kate Bush and Björk, Magdalene isn't quite greater than the sum of its parts.

60
Mojo
Twigs plants words with tenacious deliberation and care, but sometimes the result is over-studied, a gentle industrial emo.
60
The Guardian

Sometimes the results are stunning ... Sometimes, however, the songs are weirdly stifling.

loganchung
95

Fka Twigs didn’t just make an album, she crafted an experience of pure artistry.

The juxtaposition that is meticulously woven throughout is absolutely incredible. To sum things up, Twigs is essentially utilizing Mary Magdalene, a biblical figure, as a personal allegory. Both females never truly had full control of their own narrative due to patriarchy. Mary Magdalene is infamous for being wrongly labeled as a prostitute and a sinful woman throughout history, while Twigs on the other ... read more

UltimateLifeFrm
95

Surrealist art pop in full artistic glory!

Magdalene is the 2nd album from English singer-songwriter FKA twigs, released in November 2019. It had been recorded tbroughout 2016-19, with a lot of the production being done by herself while having a wide range of co-producers such as Oneohtrix Point Never, Skrillex, Benny Blanco & Noah Goldstein.

Oh my... every time I go into a FKA twigs project, I'm always left breathless by the level of adventurous risks that she takes with each record and ... read more

Mellesteen
90

God I love feminist art pop.

After having been familiar with FKA Twigs for quite some time, I decided to check this out today as I needed something relaxing to nurse a bad hangover. Maybe it's not an obvious pick for relaxation, but this was exactly what I needed today.

The record kicks off flawlessly with the surrealistic, breathaking ambience of "a thousand eyes", and follows it equally perfectly with "home with you", a favorite of mine. Throughout the next couple ... read more

fordneedstorest
94

damn that one twigs stan account was right

asjiyn
100

"MAGDALENE" is an ethereal experience, rewarding those who are patient while digesting such a project.

Wow, where do I even begin? Well, to start off, let's talk about me giving 100s to certain albums, EPs. As if you do not know already based on viewing profile, I barely have a lot of LPs/EPs that are rated 100s. A perfect score means a lot for me personally, and if a project can overcome that barrier to receive that score, it means that I truly praise those projects with all my ... read more

speedmaster
90

It makes me feel like I'm floating every time

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Track List

1thousand eyes
5:00
89
2home with you
3:44
93
3sad day
4:15
92
4holy terrain
4:03
feat. Future
84
5mary magdalene
5:21
94
6fallen alien
3:58
93
7mirrored heart
4:32
92
8daybed
4:31
86
9cellophane
3:24
96
Total Length: 38 minutes
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Added on: April 22, 2019