With Fetch The Bolt Cutters, Fiona Apple hits a zenith of liberation and experimentation
Music Reviews music review
During the season-two finale of British drama The Fall, Gillian Anderson’s sex-crimes investigator realizes a victim could be behind a locked door, and instead of waiting for backup, orders a cop to “Fetch the bolt cutters.” Upon hearing the phrase, Fiona Apple immediately wrote it down. The tool was designed to remove excess metal after fastening objects together; in Apple’s hands, it becomes a fast-track to liberation.
With Fetch The Bolt Cutters, her fifth album and first in eight years, the classically trained pianist finds herself in a dizzying stretch of reclamation. Backed by drummer Amy Aileen Wood, Soul Coughing bassist Sebastian Steinberg, and guitarist Davíd Garza, she uses these 13 songs to embolden women, ridicule abusers, and set herself free from studio constraints. It’s as if by becoming a professional homebody following 2012’s The Idler Wheel…, the 42-year-old Apple obliterated the pressures of outside expectations at large.
Unquestionably, Fetch The Bolt Cutters is Apple’s most intimate album yet (which is really saying something). Scaling back on piano in favor of chant-driven melodies and leaning into live mixing, she rejected traditional studio production on the record, opting instead to control the compositions, recording, and production—what little of it there is—from the comfort of home. Transforming her house into a makeshift bohemian studio, Apple covered windows with tapestries and pushed furniture against the walls to flood the room with instruments: keyboards, upright bass, snares, toms, cymbals, piano, wood blocks, even an engorged timpani. At one point, she used the metal circumference of a miniature trampoline as a percussion instrument while sitting atop it, singing. Without studio trickery, her voice sounds raw and real, morphed by the room’s acoustics. Some tracks sound like unfinished demos—minus the plucked strings, “Rack of His” could be an ardent live recording at a cabaret—which is either a dream come true for fans of the “leaked” Jon Brion mix of Extraordinary Machine or a potential turnoff for those who loved When The Pawn…’s studio perfectionism.
“We played the way kids play or the way birds sing,” bassist Steinberg told The New Yorker. He wasn’t romanticizing it: Fetch The Bolt Cutters is full of visceral, jittery, wonderfully imperfect performances that make the album feel like a dreamlike concert at Largo. “Shameka” is some Franz Liszt cacophony with a vaudevillian chorus, and “I Want You To Love Me” is a whimsical romp through pastoral swells. Then there’s the album’s climax, “Cosmonauts,” which sounds like friends toying around and falling into a hypnotic rhythm-turned-cathartic breakdown. It concludes with an unbridled scream and Apple whispering hums, as if lulling herself out of a night terror.
Apple famously labeled the world “bullshit” during her 1997 VMAs acceptance speech for Best New Artist. As of last year, she was still calling bullshit, and she’s got the receipts to prove it: developing OCD as a child, raped by a stranger in her home’s stairwell at age 12, struggling to control her subsequent depression and anxiety as a teen, and suffering through traumatic relationships in adulthood. But with the swiftness of a graffiti artist marking blame on a billboard at night, Apple uses Fetch The Bolt Cutters to not just call abusers out, but attempt to hold them accountable. She outlines the life and possible sympathies of a coke-sniffing, abusive, cheating husband on “For Her,” only to scald him with a concluding reminder: “Good mornin’, good mornin’ / You raped me in the same bed your daughter was born in.” Later, Apple recreates the modern serial-rapist narrative with “Newspaper,” a stripped-down number about a woman feeling connected to a stranger who was abused by the same man she was, with backup vocal harmonies by her sister. Elsewhere, on “Heavy Balloon,” she reminds trauma victims how therapeutic it is to share their stories and rightfully take up space, hollering so loudly at one point that the microphone pops. Old hits like “Criminal” and “Sleep To Dream” vilified lewd men, of course, but here she’s turning adamant observations into call-to-action efforts that feel more overt than before.
Apple has always fought for what she believes in, despite the labels that consequently clung like magnets: “uncompromising,” “crazy,” “difficult.” By now, it’s cliched enough to mock; in “Under The Table,” a tongue-in-cheek dinner party conversation, she declares chipperly, “Kick me under the table all you want / I won’t shut up!” Fetch The Bolt Cutters is the artist looking into the future and stating, not asking for, her demands. She released the record in April instead of October as suggested. She created the album art by hand. She even retained the background noise like laundry machine whirrs and the barking of her pit bull-boxer mix, Mercy. But more than that, this album is Apple sounding assured with where she’s at in life and wishing the same for anyone holding similarly toxic cards.
44 Comments
I can’t wait to listen to this! I’m actually only a recent convert to Apple even though I grew up with her music. My friend made me a mix tape with a bunch of stuff from Idler Wheel and When The Pawn….and I couldn’t get enough of it. She often gets compared to Kate Bush (whom is one of my favorites) but the similarities are surface level. I dislike that any talented female artist with a piano is dubbed a Kate clone. While they both deal in raw emotion and intelligent, evocative lyrics, they really couldn’t be more different.
They are both dramatic performers but in completely opposite ways. Bush’s drama tends to go big while Apple’s tends to go very small. It’s very surface level but, yeah, you play a piano and are a lady and you’re either Kate Bush or Tori Amos. Alas.
Yeah Tori Amos as well. My ex was really into Tori Amos and I tried to get her into Kate Bush but she resisted it completely, which at the time I thought was really strange, but looking back that was a pretty good indicator of how different these artists are.
Tori borrows a little from Kate Bush. And does it way better than Sarah McLaughlan did. And also was just super prolific, especially compared to Kate Bush. Boys For Pele is 70 odd minutes, 18 songs, most of which are fucking really good.
I would say this album is spiritually similar to Kate Bush in that Fiona Apple was in complete control of her vision and presented us with exactly what she wanted to present us with.
I think there’s an explicit ‘running up that hill’ reference in the new album though, so definitely an influence
I just noticed it today! Very cool!
One of the songs on this album quotes Kate Bush!
The godmother of ADD/peanut allergy music.
I woke up and sprinted to the living room to listen to the album. It has been on repeat all morning. It is absolutely stunning. She is truly just so talented, the type of talent that doesn’t come often. I can’t wait for a physical release of the album.
I have to stop reading reviews of this, getting my expectations too high, Pitchfork gave it a straight 10.
First this I listened to this morning. It’s fucking intense and just surprises. It’s really remarkable.
I liked my first listen, need to give it more time, it’s sonically definitely Fiona Apple’s Jugband Xmas
This is one of the rare occasions, where no matter how lofty your expectations, they will still be exceeded. It’s just f***ing fantastic, I’ve been listening via Apple Music all day, but I need to __really__ listen later tonight.
ONNN WEEEEED?
As a more casual fan of her work, I enjoyed it and found a lot I’ll be going back to for more focused listening, but do wish she’d gone further with more traditional melody so I had more to hook into emotionally. But glad her fans love it!
indeed, I feel like she say what she wants to say within the first 2 mins then she continues for another 3-5. It’s a little grueling but then again, I did listen on my way home from my “essential” job, so I probably just wasn’t in the mood on a friday afternoon.
It deserves all that praise.
This album is exhilarating. And Nina – my VERY first thought when I heard the full album was the Jon Brion version of Extraordinary Machine. It’s like Apple took the whimsy of his production, smashed it into a million pieces, and reassembled it into something that is all her.
I had no idea this was coming out, ahhhh, I am so happy for new Fiona music! 😀
Listening now, it’s not the immediate desire to learn the lyrics and sing-a-long while cooking I usually feel with Apple, but there is something that captures a raw energy that truly does feel ‘exhilarating’ and new. And wow do I need this kind of raw energy right now with covid 🙂
well said
I was disappointed with the last album especially after listening to Extraordinary Machine (both versions) and When the Pawn … on repeat for decades. I’ll buy this one for sure, but I don’t have high expectations.
This is a tremendous piece of music.
This thing is astounding. It’s like Fiona Apple’s Tom Waits album. That’s a little reductive, though. I’ve never heard anything like this. It’s like PJ Harvey and Patti Smith having a fight. I am in love with it.
That was my reaction, too. It’s incredibly new to my ears, like Apple reaching peak-level auteur on Album #5.
I am feeling White Album-level love and am kinda blushed to say it – it’s that masterful. Let’s see if my love is intense Monday AM.
Oh hey she’s back. Good for her. Fiona was one of my favorites growing up even though I didn’t truly appreciate her until my later college years while my friends were busy gushing over Ani DiFranco.
I got crazy excited when I saw that this had dropped. I’m still waiting to listen to it, the reviews make it sound like a pretty heavy experience and I want to dive in with the right mindset (something I don’t really have today), but it sounds like all of the experimental aspects I loved in Idler Wheel got turned up to 11 and I couldn’t be more hyped about that.
I would say it picks up where Idler Wheel left off, expanding on the things she was doing in that album. I think you’re going to love it.
Holy shit. I kept seeing glowing reviews of this album and decided to give it a listen. It is as good as everyone says. Wow.
I’m going to join the chorus of praise for this, it’s a remarkable album that’s only getting better on repeat listens; it’s angry and devastating and witty AND THERE ARE DOGS!!DOGS!!!
I keep seeing reviews mention how the album’s title came from Gillian Anderson’s line of dialogue from that episode of The Fall, but no mention of Allan Cubitt, who wrote that line of dialogue. It’s a great line (and great choice for an album title by Fiona Apple) so let’s give the writer his due!
Wow. Manages to deal with incredibly heavy stuff and still come across as a joy to listen to. It’s amazing.
Going through the details of your life that justify being a self absorbed person? Check Liberated. Check Intimate. Not really ending any song without making dolphin noises, inserting barking dogs, general howling? Check Experimental. Abruptly making it sound like you are recording on a street corner with someone beating on a drum and conversations going on in the background? Check Ambitious. AV Club Grade: A
I’ve been a huge fan from the beginning and even I’m blown away! It’s the record I sure needed right now, and this is maybe one of those moments where we all needed to be reminded to stay pissed off, funny and wrong.
I’ve been listening thru Spotify…but where can you *buy* it?
She rushed out the release so there’s no physical product yet but you can buy vinyl/CDs on her website which give an immediate download too.
I wish I had thought about that before posting this…(makes perfect sense). Thank you.
I can definitely understand “The 10″. The kinds of artistic risks involved in making your best, most relevant, record at the age of 42 are not to be taken likely. This is a groundbreaker in every sense. As a member of her generation, my feeling is: this is our “Blonde”. It’s a definitive statement that expands the emotional palette of pop music, totally fresh sounding and of it’s moment.
Aw man, it really is as good as the reviews say it is.
Well: It’s got good percussion.
It’s incredible. Almost every song is legitimately funny.
I wanna like it, but I’m more about melodies when it comes to music and not so much about the lyrics. So it’s hard to latch on to any of these tracks. They’re mostly spastic sounding tracks with Fiona pausing and then starting again and then pausing. If not it sounds like spoken word or the tracks all over the place. The first track, I want you to love, I kind of enjoy. It’s growing on me.