Review Summary: Who dares to taint, with vulgar paint, the royal flowerbed?
Given the artistically staged cover and provocative title, you’d be forgiven for expecting Jillian Banks' latest to mark a graceful leap forward in her career, perhaps offering a deeper exploration of her artistry through some grand concept. You might even assume that the presentation signals a return to the darker, more thoughtfully expressive moodiness of her earlier records. Wouldn’t that be nice? Whilst the gradual decline in quality between Banks’ releases has generally been accepted, there’s always been the tantalising flicker of that distinctive, intriguing artist, able to leverage trends with nuance whilst maintaining an unmistakable originality. This is precisely where
Off With Her Head falters: it tries, and fails, to balance chart-driven shallowness with Banks' signature personality-driven uniqueness. It’s an album with impressive production and plenty of enjoyable moments, but it’s also the most streamlined and simplistic she’s ever sounded, her impressive voice struggling to scale a cliff-face of uncharacteristically underwhelming songwriting that fails to convey her established artistry, or chosen theme, in any meaningful way. Scratch beneath the surface of this alluring package just a tiny bit and a far less captivating, and ultimately disappointing truth emerges.
…[Off With Her Head] can mean a few different things: 1. get out of your head- stop overthinking everything. That negative voice you have in your head? She’s dead, bye. 2. Anything negative you feel like is bringing you down in your life…. past relationships or something you keep feeling anxious about, anything- off with her head. It’s done.
It’s… an empowering phrase I like to say to myself…
The album’s title and concept clearly hold personal significance for Banks. They’re memorable, weighty, and seemingly engineered to allow for deeper insights into the artist’s life and history, which is certainly a well-advised path to follow after previous release,
Serpentina. In theory,
Off With Her Head could have been fertile ground for resonant themes of self-empowerment and emotional release, and on these terms, it is frequently somewhat successful. What’s perplexing, though, is how the lyrical content often feels stuck in the past it seeks to move on from, content to dwell on old mistakes and unresolved negative emotions rather than convincingly sever ties with them. This seems to undermine the album’s stated intentions, and whilst Banks’ spirited delivery can effectively distract from this, much of the material lacks a sense of progression, either in attitude or sound.
Though the lyrics retain the poetic candour that has long been part of Banks’ appeal, much of the music is underdeveloped, with lean melodies and stripped-back instrumentation that frequently feels lazier than it ought to. The album’s flaws are starkly exposed on tracks like ‘Move’ featuring Yseult, which manages the impressive feat of being too busy despite its relative simplicity- a spaghetti maze of conflicting sounds that clash in a persistently irritating, unattractive way. Similarly, ‘Direction’’s jumble of claps, strings, and booming bass leaves Banks’ vocal grasping for purchase amidst the clutter. The dilution of artistic vision reaches a noteworthy low point on the Kim Petras collaboration ‘I Hate Your Ex Girlfriend’, a track that, whilst admittedly not representative of the album’s overall sound, epitomizes many of its worst tendencies. From the eyebrow-cocking title to the flat, pounding beat, the song is much more aligned with Petras’ style than Banks’, and as such, is exceptionally ill-fitting for the flow of the album. Despite the uniform nature of the sound, the disparity between the two artistic styles is glaring, serving up Petras’ energy with a ladel and Banks’ by a thimble. With much of the album showcasing Jillian's balance of signature icy detachment and poetic lyricism, this track stands as an especially jarring example of how mismatched pairings can sand down an artist's individual voice, resulting in a song that feels entirely out of place and disruptive to the release’s tone.
Despite these missteps, the album is occasionally able to find its footing and give listeners some hard-hitting showstoppers to retain interest. ‘Meddle in the Mold’ is a minimal yet grand hip-hop-infused cut that highlights Banks’ vocal ability superbly, allowing her to glide effortlessly through a whirlwind of rich strings with a slickly executed melody backending the experience. Well-written and cleverly mixed, gentle lines give rise to quickened flutters within phrases that bestow the composition with a winningly unpredictable flow to tie the piece together. Similarly, ‘Stay’’s use of dusty, muffled keys and gentle bass to create space for Banks’ breathy delivery is an inspired combination, capturing the singer's trademark energy in a way that feels robust, sophisticated and genuine. The title track deserves a special mention also, as it almost succeeds in redeeming many of the album’s shortcomings thanks to its parting position on the tracklist. With its downtempo groove and catchy hooks, it offers a dynamic interplay between vocal and instrumentation that recalls the high points of
III, and particularly of its lead single, ‘Gimme’. It’s one of the few moments on the record that unashamedly taps into the creativity of her earlier work, offering a glimpse of what the album could have been had it fully embraced the moody brashness that has made Banks’ sound so compelling in the past.
It’s extremely disappointing that an album as convincingly produced and vocally engaging as
Off With Her Head feels quite so inconsistent. Whilst even the lesser tracks have moments of catchiness, they also reveal an artist seemingly willing to sacrifice her unique identity in pursuit of a blander, more digestible product. Banks is certainly deserving of a greater mainstream acceptance, but her gradual drifting away from the more distinctive elements of her sound raises questions about her motivations. Rather than pushing her artistry forward,
Off With Her Head feels like a regressive experience that offers little in the way of career-spanning highlights, or even the self-contained longevity of her previous efforts. The strongest moments, which are still thankfully evocative of the melancholic brashness of her earlier work, are compelling enough on their own terms, but also offer depressing glimpses of what the album could have been. In context, they are flashes of colour against an otherwise washed-out landscape, with Banks’ stellar voice the only element keeping her identity fully intact, albeit by a thin thread.
Off With Her Head is a solid album, well-produced and with occasional moments of brilliance, but ultimately it’s the singer’s blandest effort to date, its best moments offering little more than a bittersweet reminder of what it could have been.
