Review: Fetch The Bolt Cutters - Fiona Apple

By Greg Wiacek

Alright, let’s address the elephant in the room: as of the time of this writing, Fetch The Bolt Cutters, the fifth record from singer/songwriter Fiona Apple, holds a perfect 100 on Metacritic, averaged from 21 different high-profile reviews. A certain music blog, who awarded this album its first perfect rating in nearly an entire decade, concluded that “no music has ever sounded like [this album].” The quote comes off just a bit hyperbolic, given that the roots of this album largely carry over from Fiona’s (excellent) previous album from eight years ago, The Idler Wheel... (that’s all of that title I’m typing out, damn it!). The primary difference, however, is that this album has an additional injection of inspiration from the production styles of Kate Bush’s The Dreaming (whom she brilliantly references later in the album) and Tom Waits’ Bone Machine.

Now, is this album perfect and going to change your life? No, I don’t personally think so - nor do I feel that Fiona is someone who cares about the validation of others when making her art. Knowing that I will never be able to authentically relate to her exact experience, it’s possible I should shut the fuck up as straight white male #9115654985, and simply recognize that a woman in music is achieving universal, critical acclaim in an uncompromising manner. But even with all these ramifications that exist in 2020, it would be a disservice not to address this masterpiece of a record. Truth be told, this album is damn good. 

Really damn good – it fully commits to its daring sound, confrontational lyrics and an immersive atmosphere to propel it through a 51-minute run-time that feels like a breeze. It’s also uncanny how perfectly timed the release of this album is in current circumstances. The stripped back sound primarily features Fiona’s voice, piano (and other keyboard instruments), unorthodox layered percussion (often featuring found items around her household including the bones of her deceased dog) and upright bass all recorded in her home with some accidental imperfections captured in between. Yes, the recording of this dates back to 2015, and perhaps it’s because of six weeks of quarantine, but the album puts you right in the room with Fiona and co. Albums that exist in their own world, that invite you in to take you out of your own reality, aren’t easy to come by, but Fetch The Bolt Cutters achieves this in spades.

Fiona still largely sounds like the Fiona we know, but she furthers her voice in a more animated style, in order to suit the shift in musical backdrop; her conversational singing and lyrical style is perhaps the most direct it’s ever been. On “I Want You To Love Me,” a gorgeous piano chord progression contrasts later in the song with the more primal and rhythmic bridge. Fiona strains her voice and smashes the piano keys behind the lyrics to further support the visceral feel “And I want you to use it, blast the music, bang it, bite it, bruise it.”

It’s lyrics like these throughout the record that jolt the listener, due to their profundity. On “Under The Table,” the line “I would beg to disagree but begging disagrees with me” is stupidly simple, sticking to your head like gum (under the table). Fiona digs deeper with simplicity on “Relay,” where she sings “I resent you for being so sure - I resent you presenting your life like a fucking propaganda brochure.” The toxicity of woman-on-woman competition is a theme that’s present through the record, not necessarily on every song, but featured in many forms. It’s not something I can entirely relate to or speak for, but I can’t help being excited about an album that’s so clearly made by a woman for women in this manner. 

The term “minimalist” has been thrown around in describing this record, but leaning on the side of disagreement, there are several moments throughout the record in which big sounds “fill the room” (“maximalist” sounds, if you will). This is especially true of “Shameika.” For the most part, it is only stand-up bass, some drums and a piano, and yet it bursts at the seams with energy and fervor. The piano line is simply sick as fuck, firmly sitting in the driver’s seat for the song. When the overdubbed vocals enter in feverishly, they holler “I didn’t smile, because a smile always seemed rehearsed, I wasn’t afraid of the bullies and that just made the bullies worse.” The half-rap suave of the line “that’s my bird in my tree - my dog and my man and my music is my holy trinity” – coupled with the perfectly suitable loop of the last minute — piques un-ironic interest in the thought of Fiona taking a full swing at a hip-hop album. There’s a theatrical flair throughout, given the cabaret-style instrumentation and the charisma with which Fiona sings. 

Many of the songs here may sound off-the-cuff and spontaneous on the surface. There’s a moment where Fiona briefly misses the beat of the song and mutters “ah, fuck, shit,” and another where her and her friends’ dogs erupt into barking. Furthermore, there's the perfectly incidental capture of her dogs barking on the record after she makes a Hounds of Love reference – perhaps it was intentionally kept after the fact, for it is a beautiful touch.

Moments like these are nice little touches that help support the organic feel of the record. However, don’t be fooled, a tremendous amount of labor and care was put in each of these songs. There’s still a lot of layers to the onion to peel back; there are little details in the sounds or verbal twists in the phrases still being discovered with each subsequent listen. There’s abrupt tempo changes, labyrinthine song structures that could care less about verse/chorus/verse/repeat, but each of these moments absolutely function for the purpose of the song’s flow and album’s sequencing. 

In summation, I’m not trying to come from the perspective of pegging this album down and calling it overrated. Far from it - this is an utterly delightful album, another fantastic addition to Fiona Apple’s consistent discography, and simply put, it’s an ingeniously cool and catchy album that stands out as a necessary and refreshing listen in 2020. Point being: listen to this and form your own opinion, without consideration of the perfect acclaim it’s been receiving, and you might end up liking it even more than I did...but I’d also judge you if you straight up didn’t like a single thing about this, punk.

BOPS: "I Want You To Love Me," "Shameika," "Ladies," "Rack of His," "Cosmonauts"

DUDS: "On I Go," "Drumset"