Album Review: Eusexua Afterglow by FKA twigs
After Eusexua’s dance‑floor high, FKA twigs turns the glow of recovery into something hungrier and self‑possessed.
The year was meant to be a victory lap: Eusexua earned major award nominations and Twigs prepared a bespoke Coachella set. Then the tour collapsed. Flights and visas weren’t secured, and months of choreography were wasted. Instead of retreating, she dismantled her management structure and took charge of logistics. Adversity spurred creativity. Those sessions produced Eusexua Afterglow, a record made not from survival but from a desire to control the next chapter. She also studied bus routes, freight schedules, and customs protocols to prevent future oversights and ditched a traditional manager so no one could keep her in the dark again.
Twigs initially envisioned Afterglow as a deluxe edition of Eusexua, but the ideas kept coming. The earlier project defined eusexua as a state of pure focus and nothingness. The new one “expands on the feelings that come after experiencing Eusexua, transmuting them into a soundtrack for the hours after the rave.” She calls it “a visceral waterfall” that splashes as you leave the club, an aftermath that is “hungry, raw and ready to be adored.” In a Rolling Stone interview, she delineated Eusexua as learning to accept yourself and others, describing herself as a “tiny light inside my chest” with endless possibilities. Afterglow takes that optimism and applies it to the hours when the lights come up: she isn’t recovering; she’s designing pleasure on her own terms.
Such self-determination suits a musician who has never fit a single genre. After debuting within alternative R&B, Twigs blended trip-hop, opera, and club-ready grooves into a singular style. On Afterglow, she pares back some theatricality. The beats pulse like house and techno, but the spaces in between allow her voice to flash mischief. Rather than veiling feelings, she names them with wry specificity. The record feels leaner and freer because she laughs at her contradictions instead of hiding them.
“Love Crimes” balances hunger and distance. A looped line—“You don’t understand, I had to let you go”—acts as both mantra and defence. In the chorus, she concedes “hard times call for love crimes” and admits someone might be “the one,” yet she still ends it. Her voice remains cool, then cracks, showing a body that yearns even as it withdraws. By repeating rather than escalating, she studies desire instead of surrendering to it.
On “Slushy,” Twigs inventories simple joys—“The bluest sky, the deepest night… a bowl of rice”—before racing around town with friends “actin’ twenty-three.” She asks herself who she is becoming, then vows to “make you have me” while warning she’ll “break my heart every night.” Comfort and self-sabotage sit side by side; the track feels like an after-party confessional. “HARD” refuses euphemism. Over taut drums she warns, “Don’t touch, blessed and rushed,” then demands, “If you’re gonna love me, do it right and love me hard.” She later notes sleepless nights and attempts to break her down, but reclaims her physical freedom, calling herself “so physically free.” The song is not about violence, however. It’s about clarity—sex as a negotiation she controls.
The afterglow turns uneasy on “Lost All My Friends.” A refrain of losing friends, losing her mind, and forgetting a stranger spirals into anxiety. There is no resolution; emptiness becomes part of the journey. “Stereo Boy” brings a quieter pain. She tries to connect with someone drawn to speed and status, sings of “doors open, suicide,” and hears only the “static in your heart.” Changing stations doesn’t erase the ache; the track ends in acceptance that some interference can’t be tuned away.
Across the record, she navigates the tension between freedom and performance, memory and embodiment. A lifelong dancer entering her fourth decade in motion, she admits that forced routines can be miserable but reframes movement as something shared. That ambivalence shows in the music: beats urge motion, yet many songs linger, as if she is choosing when to move and when to rest. That acceptance flows from Twigs’ real-world pivot. She downplays celebrity, insisting she is just a light inside her chest, yet acknowledges the importance of taking control. Humor and vulnerability live side by side: she sings about designer denim, slushies, and cheap hotels, then confesses to spinning alone.
For an artist intimately aware of the internet’s appetite for bodies, Twigs has been outspoken about unauthorized AI deepfakes of her likeness, insisting on controlling her image and sound. That activism informs the album’s preoccupation with reproduction and agency. On “Stereo Boy,” the static of a half-connected line stands in for the vulnerability of letting algorithms interpret desire, and the coldness of a virtual crush underscores her insistence on embodiment. In interviews, she has spoken about once feeling exploited by not owning her digital persona. With this outing, she channels those anxieties into art, turning code and circuitry into metaphors for intimacy and choice.
Outside the core songs, the album offers lighter sketches such as “Cheap Hotel,” a breezy track announced alongside the album’s release that recounts messy afternoons and shared secrets. The song is built on crisp beats and an infectious refrain about “two hours left and a half-eaten croissant,” and it highlights her restored humor. She teases the tension between anonymity and connection by setting mundane details against a pulsating backdrop, making space for laughter amid introspection. Each of these subtle moments rewards repeat listening; the afterglow lingers long after the music stops.
Great (★★★★☆)
Favorite Track(s): “Slushy,” “HARD,” “Stereo Boy”