Review: BANKS - III

BANKS' latest album III is titled as such not only because it's her third album but also because it applies to a part of her life that now has "beginning, middle and end" according to an interview with Apple Music. Her struggles with relationships and an emphasis on self love have always been documented in her music but while her previous attempts were amateurish and overall mediocre at best, III shows that BANKS is finally capable of making a good, almost great body of work.

Across 13 tracks and less than 50 minutes, BANKS explores her typical themes of heartbreak and constant self care over dark, brooding electropop beats. Sometimes the vocals are distorted, meshing almost seamlessly with the production like on Till Now and Gimme, the demanding 1-2 punch to start the album. Sometimes they're stripped down and laid bare on the track like on Sawzall, Hawaiian Mazes and What About Love. The album's mix of uptempo and slower tracks works in the artist's favor due to its sequencing, which is the best BANKS has had on any of her albums so far. BANKS' sense of melody on III is also her best yet, with songs like Alaska, Propaganda, and Gimme having very catchy rhythms that are definitely playlist ready. 

Look What You're Doing to Me, a duet with Francis and the Lights, the first guest feature to ever land on a BANKS album, is one of the highlights on III. While Francis is cut from the same cloth as Bon Iver and his brand of dark and almost haunting electronica, this track is surprisingly upbeat. Francis and BANKS blend very well together vocally with smooth transitions from one artist to the other.

A couple of filler tracks such as If We Were Made of Water and Godless are uneventful and add little to the album but the rest leads to an almost great album, the first for BANKS in her career. In her first album over the age of 30, BANKS is obviously maturing and growing more comfortable with her artistry. She's also as strong as she's ever been with her confidence. "And you should know, I never needed your advice/I should've known back then, now I know it's right" BANKS declares on Hawaiian Mazes. "That bitch" as she calls herself on Gimme is feeling more powerful than ever before and her latest work is proof of that.

Final score: 7.5/10