FKA twigs delivers highs of a night out in EUSEXUA
FKA twigs delivers highs of a night out in Eusexa
The artist’s third album takes listeners to another planet, where her self-invented feeling reigns.
In Tune is The NewsHouse’s weekly album review. Contributors Ally Watkinson and Mathilde Refloch cover new releases across genres.
Long live hyperpop. On her third studio album, British artist FKA twigs finds the perfect mix of techno and pop to create a danceable, not quite club album. It is almost as if twigs went to another planet, observed their music, and brought back her version for EUSEXUA.
In a sense, she did. The album, inspired by her time at raves in Prague, is twigs’s take on club music. Instead of creating music to play in the club, twigs made music inspired by how she feels when partying. In the same way that Lorde’s Melodrama is meant to chronicle the experience of a single house party, EUSEXUA seems to go through the rise and fall of a night out at the club.
The album starts with the high of title track and lead single “Eusexua.” Twigs’s light soprano flows over the beat, singing about the feeling she invented. When describing the feeling to British Vogue in April 2024, twigs described ‘eusexua’ as “when you’ve been kissing a lover for hours and turn into an amoeba with that person. You’re not human anymore, you’re just a feeling.” When listening to the album, this description makes perfect sense. There is an ethereal vibe present in the music that can only be described in twigs’s own words.
The first half of the album is irresistibly danceable with songs like “Girl Feels Good” and “Perfect Stranger.” EUSEXUA is not a perfect club album like the 2024 Charli XCX hit brat. Instead, it is sensual and internal, evoking the feeling of making eye contact with a beautiful stranger from across the dance floor. This feeling is only built upon in the second half, with tracks “Striptease” and “24hr Dog” dripping with desire.
Track 6, “Sticky,” tricks the audience from the get-go. One glance at the title gives the impression that it is an innuendo, only for that notion to be destroyed immediately. “Sticky” begins inconspicuous and quiet, with just piano and twigs’s voice. “I’m tired of messing up my life with/ Over-complicated moments/ And sticky situations,” she sings. As the song progresses, synth elements are continuously introduced until it explodes in the last 20 seconds. It is as if the pain that twigs describes throughout the track can no longer be held in, and the cacophony of noise is the sound of her finally breaking. “Sticky” is a perfect halfway point of the album, articulating the crash out that can come during a night out, only for the feeling to rise to euphoria again.
One element of this album that doesn’t add up is the inclusion of North West on track 8, “Childlike Things.” In this song, West raps in Japanese about Jesus. No, that’s not a joke. The verse, according to Billboard, translates as follows: “Hello, my name is North/ From California to Tokyo/ Jesus the King/ Praise God/ Jesus is the only true God.” In the context of the rest of the song, as well as the rest of the album, this choice makes no sense. But, outside of the strange interlude, the song is fun, dripping in the club sound that the album hinges on.
In the closing track, “Wanderlust,” twigs drops the club aesthetics entirely, delivering something more similar to a piano ballad. “Sticky” serves as a false comedown, with “Wanderlust” sounding like watching the sunrise the morning after a night out. With the bridge comes the return of a techno beat and the corniest lyrics from the entire album. “You’ve one life to live, do it freely/ It’s your choice to break or believe in it/ I’ll be in my head if you need me/ Right there if you need me,” sings twigs. Between the instrumentation and the lyrics, this portion of the song almost sounds like a song from an early 2000s teen movie.
EUSEXUA is a thrilling ride from beginning to end. “Do you feel alone?/ You’re not alone,” twigs tells the listener in the title track. If nights out aren’t your thing, let FKA twigs take you with her; if they are your thing, experience EUSEXUA anyway.
is a contributor for The NewsHouse.