“There’s a power that I’m carrying that I haven't felt before,” Banks told British Vogue last October of her new album, Off with Her Head. The 33-year-old Los Angelean promised the NME that the new music would be “brave”. As a fan of confessional, female electro-pop, I was excited at the thought that she’d finally be dialling things up because – since the release of her 2014 debut, Goddess – I’ve been hunting in vain for a song that really locked emotional gears beneath the Teflon coating of moody, sexy-synth generalities. But while the black chiffon wafting is all very sultry and atmospheric, it fails to ignite the static sparks I'd hoped for.
The album’s title nods to the psychology graduate’s determination to bypass her head and write straight from her body, heart and soul. It's a good idea, but the overarching effect is that she sounds oddly detached. Take the opening track, “Guillotine”, over which she breathes menacingly about putting tape on somebody’s mouth (her own?). She conjures the threat effectively but takes it nowhere.
I find the same problem elsewhere, as atmosphere leaks out of the speakers like dry ice before dissipating, leaving only an empty stage. “Move” plays absentmindedly with the chord sequence of Cyndi Lauper’s sentimental Eighties ballad “True Colors”, before Banks starts calling on her lover to “move/ move/ move”. The only shift of sonic pace arrives as French singer/model Yesult changes language to a sly, entertaining patois in which she pouts: “F*** me lentement”.
Yesult isn't the only collaborator to add some texture here. Sampha pops in with a little R&B lover boy swagger on “Make It Up”. Best is the lead single, “I Hate Your Ex-Girlfriend”, which finds Banks venting all her least sisterly feelings over rustily distorted bass springs. “Set this bitch in motion, she’s emotional,” she sneers in a sour-candy whisper. She’s egged on by Doechii (who became only the third woman to win the Grammy Award for Best Rap album earlier this month). The rapper’s ire explodes like a volcano halfway through the track, totally owning the unacceptable rage – “I hate you bitches, I’m misogynistic” – before we’re back with Banks’s glacial snark.
There's a scant shift in vocal tone as Banks laments the loss of a confidante on “Best Friends”, although the song is underpinned by a pleasantly grungey-swashy guitar hook. On this track, she describes looking at photos online and seeing a woman who might dress the same, but isn’t. Her regret swirls down the plughole of looped keyboard patterns.
There’s more momentum built, and more vocal intent, on the title track about leaving a gaslighter. Here, the synths crackle to light through the fog, catching the contours of some real feeling. “Stay” finds her on more tender, vulnerable ground, while the amusingly titled “Delulu” levitates gracefully on a warm current of vocodered air and serrated electric guitar. Banks assumes a stalkerish persona, smugly indulging her delusion that the object of her obsessive affection will soon return her feelings. Yet too much of this album purrs by, forgettably and disengaged. Banks really needs to bring herself into focus.
