FEATURE:
Revisiting...
BANKS - III
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IN a feature that looks back…
PHOTO CREDIT: Stephen Wilson
at great albums from the past five years that are worth a new spin and look now, I have spent some time with BANKS’ III. It was released on 12th July, 2019 through Harvest. Ahead of her fourth studio album, Serpentina, on 8th April (she released the latest single from the album, Holding Back, on 25th February), her current album needs spotlighting. It received some positive reviews but, in my opinion, many were more mixed and did not get to the heart of III. It is one of BANKS’ strongest works, filled as it is with incredible music. The California artist said the album was called II because it is about the beginning, middle, and end of her life. Reaching number twenty-one on the Billboard 200, perhaps it was a lower album placing than it deserved. III is definitely due some fresh love. I think the album has one or two songs not up to BANKS’ normal high, but the range of sounds are brilliant! More emotive and softer songs sit alongside the more upbeat rushes. III satisfied existing BANKS fans recruited new ones. I gained new appreciation for BANKS after hearing III. Before showing a couple of positive reviews for BANKS’ third studio album, there are interviews from 2019 that are worth highlighting. Vanity Fair spoke with BANKS, where we learn how III marked a moment of growth and change for her:
“At the beginning of her career, the musician Banks made the decision to tour nonstop. After a song she uploaded to her SoundCloud made it all the way to the BBC, she found herself opening for The Weeknd. She didn’t have time to think; she had to adjust quickly. “Especially as someone who is quite introverted in a lot of ways, it was definitely a big adjustment,” she said in a recent interview, reflecting on the road that led her album III, which is out today. “I never really took a break.”
Eventually it caught up to her. “I think I was past my limit of exhaustion, and I wasn’t physically feeling well at all,” the 31-year-old said. “I needed a break.” After dropping her sophomore album The Altar in 2016, she wanted to take some time for herself and remember her own identity as Jillian Banks, beyond her stage name.
So she decided to settle in one place. “I have been pretty much nesting in Los Angeles and really working through stuff and healing and writing,” the singer said. “When you’re touring and performing in front of all those people and you’re giving so much energy to so many people, it’s not quite normal…I needed some time to replenish my soul in really human ways.”
Recorded at Henson Studios in L.A., the new album represents a moment of growth for Banks, partially because she turned 30 while she was recording it. “[Thirty] comes with being more at peace with yourself and giving less fucks,” she said.
The album’s first single, “Gimme,” is meant to celebrate that maturity. “It felt like an unapologetic reintroduction,” she said. “It’s about knowing what you want, demanding it and saying it out loud,” she said. “In order to say, ‘Gimme what I deserve,’ you have to have a lot of confidence, and I think that’s what I love about it; it’s just about getting what you want, knowing what you deserve.”
Despite her internal changes, her trademark gospel-soul-tinged vocals remain. She also sought the help of a small group of collaborators: Frank Ocean’s music director Buddy Ross, Bon Iver producer BJ Burton, and DJ/producer Hudson Mohawke.
One collaborator in particular came as a surprise. While recording her debut album, 2016’s The Altar, Banks had an intense relationship with someone she coyly declined to name that fueled some of the songwriting. “It was very obvious, and I hadn’t spoken to him so I was scared to see him,” she said. But a few years later, they became friends. He wound up playing her a song that he couldn’t finish, called “Godless,” and said it was about her. While Banks typically writes her songs solo, she couldn’t help but want to finish it. “I pretty much finished this song that was originally about me,” she laughed. “But it turned into something about that relationship.… It’s beautiful, but it’s a little bit twisted if you look at it on the surface.”
Relationships are a throughline on III, but they don’t all come to such a pleasant end. On “Stroke,” she sings about the allure and simultaneous misery of dating a narcissist. “It’s really impossible to be with a narcissist,” she said. “If you’re an empath, it’s a dangerous combination.”
The record closes out, however, on a hopeful note with “What About Love.” She is more optimistic than jaded there, and the song ends with a snippet of her four-year-old niece saying “I love you.” “Something about [that song] feels really naïve, and I think that’s why I wanted to end on it,” she said. “Because despite whatever you go through, I always want to feel hopeful”.
When talking with Harper’s BAZAAR, BANKS explained how this was very much the same artist making III; she was addressing issues and traumas that, perhaps, were hidden or overlooked when she was recording previously:
“Making III meant revisiting previously "blocked out" traumas and finding a new way forward from them.
"I guess I’ve just grown a lot [since The Altar came out in 2016] and my music always reflects what I’m going through in my real life. I feel like I’m just in a different place and so the music sounds different. I mean, it’s still coming from me, so it’s not like a different human is making it. It’s just I was working through some things on this album that I had maybe blocked out in the past, with certain coping mechanisms or whatever.
"There’s like a youthfulness and a naivety that I wanted to capture on the album. Songs like 'Sawzall' and 'What About Love;—they feel to me like they come from this really pure place, when you’re really bright-eyed and young, before you’ve gone through stuff. It’s not that you’re naïve, but you haven’t been hurt yet, so you view things with a different-colored glasses on. I never wanna lose that. It was really important for me to capture that type of energy on this album."
"Gimme" is about staking a claim in whatever the fuck you want.
"['Gimme' is about] just, y’know, owning it. Getting what you want. Being loud about admitting who you are and what you want, and being proud of that, and having fun with it! It’s fun being a powerful woman, and playing around, and announcing your power. And I feel like, for me, that song does that, whether it’s about a relationship, whether it’s about getting a fucking raise… it’s about being like ‘I deserve what I want so I’m gonna get it, and if you don’t give it to me, I’m going to snatch it.’"
Women's reproductive rights are under attack and, like all of us, BANKS feels the very real political threat.
"It’s so sad what’s happening right now. I can’t even… I’m speechless about it. It feels unreal and unbelievable. For me, when I make music, it’s such a fluid process… it’s not really in my brain, it’s in my body. So, I’m sure things that I’m feeling subconsciously affect my music.
"But I don’t think I read politics, or anything that’s going on in that realm, and then think, 'That’s going to affect my music.' It’s more like, if you read that abortion is now illegal in some places, that is going to fuck with your head. That’s terrible. Then, if you go into the studio and you’re feeling pretty heavy, that might affect the song you make that day”.
Despite a few average reviews, there was general positivity for the incredible III. This is what AllMusic had to say in their review for one of 2019’s strongest and most personal albums:
“Three years after her electronically robust sophomore outing, The Altar, and Banks has grown. On her aptly titled third set, III, she continues her upward trajectory with improved vocals and production value, presenting a wiser version of herself with more mature lyrics focused on longing, love, and loss, and fresh, expansive atmospherics that toy with her usual alt-R&B stylings. There's a refreshed spirit coursing through III that transforms her typically chilly and hypnotic aura into something grander. Whereas her first two releases maintained a fairly homogeneous, dark synth energy, III features a number of surprises that elevate the effort to new heights in her catalog. Key collaborators help buffer her vision, with frequent Kanye West sidemen Hudson Mohawke ("Gimme") and Francis and the Lights ("Look What You're Doing To Me"), R&B crooner Miguel ("The Fall"), and Adele/Rihanna producer Paul Epworth ("Hawaiian Mazes") contributing to a handful of highlights. In addition to the aforementioned "Gimme" and "Hawaiian Mazes," the throbbing "Stroke" features a late-song funk-bass injection that not only shifts the mood of the track, but also of the entire album. Later, the tribal "Alaska" and '80s synth pop gem "Propaganda" have the same effect, hinting at exciting new directions for future compositions. These creative bursts help Banks deliver her most accomplished statement to date, a collection brimming with emotion, attitude, and unexpected delights”.
The final thing I want to include is CLASH’s review of III. They had a lot of positive things to say for a passionate and powerful artist whose lyrics – perhaps her strong suit – are at their most astonishing and direct:
“BANKS is a formidable artist. Her creativity as an avant-pop singer merges with her vulnerability in a way that she’s now mastered, making music that’s as provocative as it is heart breaking (at times) - and she’s maintained this with her latest album.
The opening track, ‘Till Now’, is a declaration of sorts (“And you been messin’ me around ‘till now”) and sets the tone for how the rest of the album will unfold, while ‘Gimme’ - the album’s first single - is electrifying with its synth-heavy sound and futuristic, electronic production.
BANKS’ lyrics are as direct as ever (“You want me to stroke your ego”). She isn’t afraid to share her feelings with listeners.
‘Sawzall’ begins life as an acoustic, stripped back track with BANKS’ vocals stripped back too, creating a very truthful feeling song. In this spirit of honesty, ‘Look What You’re Doing To Me’ (feat. Francis and the Lights) is an upbeat track, about the exuberance of being in love. The production is eccentric, but it works.
‘Propaganda’ is an attention-grabber of a song, as is ‘The Fall’, which exudes passion in its delivery. The final two tracks ‘Made of Water’ and ‘What About Love’ are soft, soulful tracks, both tinged with sadness. ‘What About Love’ is a beautiful ending to the record.
BANKS is ever-evolving and ‘III’ is definitely a progression for her as an artist. The more upbeat tracks are interspersed among softer, more delicate, heartfelt ones that represent the duality of her personality and also increase its replay value”.
A remarkable album from an artist whose upcoming album, Serpentina, is going to among this year’s most-anticipated and best. I really love III. I feel it didn’t quite get the same respect and airplay as it deserved. We definitely need more songs from III played today. Even though it has a lot of producers attached, and III was recorded at quite a few different studios, that does not detract from the singularity of BANKS’ talent. It is rife and in fertile evidence right throughout her…
THIRD studio album.