Banks’s music conjures that of many a female artists. For one, she combines Adele’s dramatic heft with Lana Del Rey’s detached affectations. The trouble is, Banks never manages to step out of the shadows of the artists and sounds that she borrows from. The singer-songwriter’s fourth album, Serpentina, is a dark meditation on heartbreak and loss, but it lacks the experimental edge of 2019’s III, whose shots of distorted bass and harsh vocal effects bolstered Banks’s lyrics and carved out at least a somewhat unique niche for the artist.
The new album finds Banks in more conventional sonic terrain, where the highs are high but the lows are…just there. The one consistent singular element that distinguishes it from other contemporary pop and alternative R&B is Banks’s voice. At times pained and frenzied, like on the desperate “Holding Back,” and at others unbearably forlorn, as on the piano ballad “Birds by the Sea,” Banks’s singing has matured considerably over the years. The chorus of the former track is anchored by her pitched-up vocals, complemented by swirling layers of her more natural singing voice and a choir that sounds as if it’s emanating from just beyond the horizon.
Serpentina’s most penetrating tracks are those that wallow in feelings of dejection and heartbreak. The closer “I Still Love You” is one of the most harrowing love songs that Banks has ever recorded. Banks’s hushed vocals sound ever so slightly warped across the track’s three minutes, quivering in a way that makes her sound almost inhuman—a reflection of the song’s memorialization of a love that the singer ostensibly drove away.
Serpentina is dotted with other similarly affecting breakup songs, but they’re accompanied by mostly forgettable filler. “Anything 4 U” falters on its bland vocal processing and a backing track that’s far too skeletal, while “The Devil” shoots for such a toxic and alluring tone—with whispered vocals and lyrics describing devilish behavior—that by song’s end the titular metaphor feels more like a pastiche than an avenue for exploring a harmful relationship.
The opening track, “Misunderstood,” comes in at just under two minutes and serves as a manifesto of sorts, with Banks proclaiming herself to be something of an outcast who “wouldn’t need this hustle” if she “had one penny for every time somebody didn’t get me.” Banks is an artist whose identity seems to be something of a contradiction: a self-proclaimed outcast whose music sounds eerily similar to many of her contemporaries. And though she once again flashes her talent for delivering emotionally wrought tales of heartbreak, Serpentina asserts its uniqueness in paradoxically conventional and unsurprising ways.
Since 2001, we've brought you uncompromising, candid takes on the world of film, music, television, video games, theater, and more. Independently owned and operated publications like Slant have been hit hard in recent years, but we’re committed to keeping our content free and accessible—meaning no paywalls or fees.
If you like what we do, please consider subscribing to our Patreon or making a donation.
