Banks: Goddess

For a while all we knew of BANKS was her musician name, that she had her mobile number on Facebook and some seriously lush vocals over synthetic R&B beats. Not much has changed since then, though we now know her first name is Jillian and that her album Goddess is the best damn thing I’ve heard all month. Strong claim I know, but bear with me on this one.
Every good album needs an emotive, f-bombing number laced with spine-tingling harmonies and ‘Goddess’ is it. Aside from being the title track it’s a damn good listen.
The album is essentially an audial diary entry for the young musician, and capping off at around an hour you get an insight into BANKS like no other. ‘Waiting Game’ is emotive in all the right places as is ‘Brain’. In fact, it’s really hard to single any one song out for harnessing the musicians emotion, take away the synth and other elements and BANKS is completely stripped back.
‘Fuck Em Only We Know’ takes away a little bit of the wonder of BANKS and seems dull and lacking the right balance to make it work. This is a minor lapse and when surrounded be edgier, darker tracks ‘Stick’ and ‘Drowning’ it’s a forgettable lapse. We’ve all heard ‘Beggin’ For Thread’ and ‘Warm Water’ on the radio and there’s fair reason why we have. Living up to a hype is hard work, but it seems BANKS has done just that with her debut release.
Out now via Harvest Records
By Amanda Sherring