Tahliah Debrett Barnett, monikered ‘FKA Twigs’ released her third studio album, Eusexua, her most straightforwardly danceable album yet, mostly overseen by Welsh producer, Koreless. No doubt her vulnerable whisper can still captivate but the production is often unflattering. The addition of ‘club’ music arguably detracts rather than contributes to her emotional style which still manifests in the gloomy atmospheres and cold electronic textures.
Hence, we get the slick quasi-industrial, trip-hop Girl Feels Good, the catchy Robyn-esque dance-pop of Perfect Stranger, the chopped erotic ballad Sticky and the farcical Childlike Things (featuring Kanye West’s daughter, North West). The most experimental tracks are crafted by the producers: the anxious opener Eusexua which marries a momentous house beat to her vulnerable vocals, the machine-gun snare chaos of Drums of Death and the medieval, harpsichord-driven Keep it, Hold It which descends into neurosis. (courtesy of Nicolas Jaar, which expectedly sounds the most like the previous album). Despite the jittering electronics, Room of Fools rests on a rather straight-forward melody and beat that could be from a Madonna track. The trap-beat driven Striptease is reminiscent of the Weeknd, at his most tedious. The closer, Wanderlust, tries to recapture the skeletal and fragile ballad of Cellophane off of Magdalene, but lands on a symphonic digital hymn that is turned into a Kanye-ish creation by the digital manipulations.
The album tries to disguise the fact that the majority of its ideas are quite old-fashioned in the age of deconstructed club. Some songs are structured awkwardly as if to take the emphasis off the triviality of the ideas. Some tracks are simply mediocre and could be sang by any popstar since the 1980s.
The album was re-released with four new tracks 8 months later, removing Girl Feels Good, Perfect Stranger, Childlike Things and Wanderlust. The four new tracks are at least catchy and coherent: Perfectly, a sweet dancefloor anthem (with a Grimesian vocal), The Dare, traditional r&b with a bluesy guitar accompaniment, Got to Feel, with a tribal industrial beat and strings (a la Bjork) and Lonely But Exciting Road, a melodramatic and bombastic pop ballad.
Label: Young / Atlantic
Released: 24 January, 2025, re-released 14 November, 2025
Losing My Edge Rating: 5/10
Best Tracks: Eusexua
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With a new production team, Twigs released EUSEXUA Afterglow, which was actually significantly more than a deluxe edition of the original. This is in fact a much more assured and less compromised take on the deconstructed club genre. The beats are better-crafted. The singing is more dynamic. The structures are more coherent. The album is also forward-thinking production-wise and dabbles in a far more ‘modern’ sonic palette (where the previous album could easily have been released in 2002). Without Koreless, the album harks back to Twigs’ approach on the earlier EPs, combining her vulnerable and sexually assertive persona with icy atmospheres and beats.
Even more of an indictment of the previous album is that the dancefloor tracks are better: the fizzling dancefloor-ready, Wild and Alone, featuring PinkPantheress and the dark Britney Spears-esque Love Crimes. German beatmaker Mechatok coins the two best tracks: the prurient footwork-like HARD, which morphs breathlessly between beats, as well as the Burial-esque dubstep banger Predictable Girl. Ambient textures pervade the dreamy Touch A Girl. Even the cybernetic love ballad Sushi stands out with an atmospheric beat and digitally fractured singing and an intermezzo of trap-like rapping which morphs into bombastic Chicago house and a back and forth between Twigs and the sampled vocal. Lost All My Friends is a frantic entanglement of vocal interplay between hushed whispers and the hysteric croons which builds into a lysergic atmosphere that fades into rumbling electronics (also, Mechatok). The closer Stereo Boy, crafted by Weeknd collaborators, Doc Mckinney and Illangelo, combines a slowcore guitar progression with garishly loud synthesisers.
This is far and away an improvement on the previous album. The production does a far superior job of spotlighting her vocal skill rather than drowning it out in sterile club music. The tracks actually put the skill of the singer to work, which leads to a far more unique and purposeful set of tracks. Mechatok’s three tracks steal the show with skittering, industrial-grade house music (echoes of the Chicago dance sound) – a worthy successor to Twigs’ long-time collaborator Nicolas Jaar. Her best music since the M3LL155X EP.
Label: Young / Atlantic
Released: 14 November, 2025
Losing My Edge Rating: 7/10
Best Tracks: HARD, Predictable Girl, Lost All My Friends