Manic descants, discordant pianos and abrupt changes in time signature at once complement and compete with each other in a carefully crafted clatter.
It’s a staggering artistic statement, one that doesn’t come along often, straight from her head and into all of our hearts.
This is an album that conveys one woman’s rage, vulnerability, confusion and wisdom in ways that we haven’t quite heard before.
On a purely musical level, it’s a bold experiment in pop craft, a collection of songs on which Apple stretches her talents in adventurous new directions ... Most importantly, the album is a vituperative catalog of the failures and pointless cruelties of a society propped up by fragile, nihilistic, patriarchal ideology.
It may seem presumptuous to assume a brand new album is destined for that level of canonization, but let’s be clear: Fetch the Bolt Cutters is a triumph, one designed with emotional and creative fearlessness and made by someone with absolutely nothing to prove and the drive to make exactly what she wants to make.
The scope of Fetch the Bolt Cutters' meaning, its infinite feeling, will likely take years to fully absorb. An album like this doesn't come often, and an artist like Apple will never come again — she's given us an invaluable piece of light, a reminder to stay alive and awake and angry and kind.
Let’s not sugarcoat it. This is not an easy listen. Yet, for those willing to give it the attention it deserves, Bolt Cutters delivers a much-needed auditory exercise for the sequestered masses and surely one of the best albums to grace us in 2020.
This album is Apple sounding assured with where she’s at in life and wishing the same for anyone holding similarly toxic cards.
Fiona Apple’s fifth record is unbound, a symphony of the everyday, an unyielding masterpiece. No music has ever sounded quite like it.
Apple tackles a similar range of emotions on Fetch the Bolt Cutters that she has dealt with before, but in a new, fiercer way.
There is nothing diminished about the fierceness of her presence on Fetch the Bolt Cutters, an album that feels both playful and urgent, melodic and chaotic, expansive and crammed with tiny definitive details.
Fetch the Bolt Cutters is as cold as it is overheated, as vibrant as it is humble, as noisily rhythmic as it is solemn, and as set-back and alone as it is welcoming of friends and pets.
Fetch The Bolt Cutters is a remarkable album that couldn’t feel any more timely.
Fetch The Bolt Cutters is mostly the soundtrack of liberation, not recrimination, with Apple's piano keys, battering on the walls and barking dogs as its percussive, beating heart. And her words are wicked and wise.
For longtime fans who are expectantly, perhaps giddily, steeling themselves for another brutal LP from Apple, Fetch The Bolt Cutters will not disappoint.
It's rare to listen to a pop album and have no idea what comes next, and Fetch the Bolt Cutters delivers surprises that delight and bruise at a rapid pace.
Bolt Cutters would be praised for its rawness and its bloodletting were it not for the fact that it is also charming, so considered, and so unapologetic for being the rattling, risqué record that it is.
Guttural, soft, cacophonous, and poetic, Fetch the Bolt Cutters is a reminder of Apple’s genius and that we are all interconnected, one people, existing in a pulse.
A bold and completely undiluted vision, Apple's fifth is something to behold.
Fetch the Bolt Cutters is a strange and exceptional record, even within the context of an uncommon career.
Fetch the Bolt Cutters has plenty of great ideas, but is sometimes betrayed by its raw presentation and quasi-experimental direction.
Listening to Fiona Apple’s previous works helps put this album to scale, as this has a magnitude and intensity like nothing she has worked on previously. It runs smooth like a hot knife through butter.
It seems to only get more intense and more appreciation from me the more I explore it. I don’t think I’ve ever heard an album like this before. This is really a journey... but this isn’t a starting point for Fiona Apple that’s for sure
Edit(100 -> 92): this ... read more
Preamble:
In the space of the 3 months Fiona Apple has quickly grown to be one of my favourite artists ever. I'm a little bit addicted to rating my favourite artist's discographies (as I assume a lot of us are and it's why we're gathered here on this site) and, for me, this is absolutely my favourite of hers now.
With raw, distinct instrumentation paired with hard-to-beat lyrical prowess, FTBC lets the listener feel lots of different and genuine emotions; it’s hard for me to find many ... read more
Throughout the past week, preparing for her first album in 8 FUCKING YEARS, I have been listening to all of her albums through once again, fully immersing myself in the quaint vignettes of her past. "Fetch the Bolt Cutters" is nothing different, albeit still invigorating, endlessly creative, and cleverly zany. Syncopated piano arpeggios and drum fills are still very prevalent, calling back to her past release "The Idler Wheel"... but this time, the entirety of the record ... read more
Instant classic. Production is immaculate, songwriting and vocal performances from Fiona are so emotionally vulnerable and honest while maintaining its deep layers. Only someone of Fiona Apple's talent could make an album of this quality. There are a lot of heavy and challenging themes to digest and it's executed so well. One of the best of the decade without a doubt.
This album for me felt different than what she usually has put out before this and at moments it sounded really great but then there were also moments that I didn't like that much at all. Overall I enjoyed it as I felt there were more positive parts than negative.
1 | I Want You To Love Me 3:57 | 94 |
2 | Shameika 4:08 | 94 |
3 | Fetch the Bolt Cutters 4:58 | 91 |
4 | Under the Table 3:21 | 93 |
5 | Relay 4:49 | 90 |
6 | Rack of His 3:42 | 89 |
7 | Newspaper 5:32 | 89 |
8 | Ladies 5:25 | 90 |
9 | Heavy Balloon 3:26 | 90 |
10 | Cosmonauts 3:59 | 94 |
11 | For Her 2:43 | 91 |
12 | Drumset 2:40 | 86 |
13 | On I Go 3:09 | 86 |
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