In January we got the first full album from FKA Twigs since Magdalene (2019) and Caprisongs (2022). Not long after EUSEXUA landed, she hinted at a deluxe version before confirming it had grown into a new project entirely. EUSEXUA Afterglow is less a standalone work than a continuation of where the first record left off. If EUSEXUA was the club, Afterglow is the afters. It is the early morning stretch where the lights come up, the noise fizzles, and you are left to contemplate your life’s choices with whatever unfolded the night before. That was her intent with this “visceral waterfall,” as she described in the press release.
Afterglow certainly feels like the after party to a pretty solid techno-influenced record, but it is not as chilled a sound as first single ‘Cheap Hotel’ suggested. Twigs’ dreamy vocals feather the majority of a glitchy and hazy production that is quite brash in parts, mimicking the electric shock-like jumps you might feel after a rave that pull you back into the room. It calls back to much of her earlier work, although not enough to make the album as instant as EUSEXUA.
‘Sushi’, on the other hand, starts as a potential highlight. It is sexy and moody before pivoting into ballroom sound bites that feel a little tired. They would not if they had not been featured so prominently across a string of releases over the last few years, an element that seemed to resurface following Beyoncé’s Renaissance era. There are only so many times we can hear “SERVE!” and “WERK!” before the fatigue kicks in and it begins to feel overdone.
With the release of Afterglow, and in a rather random turn of events, Twigs has re-released EUSEXUA, omitting four of the original tracks and replacing them with new ones. It is a slightly baffling choice, as among the tracks she has cut are the highlights ‘Girl Feels Good’ and ‘Perfect Stranger’ as well as the polarising but not nearly as disastrous as it sounded on paper, ‘Childlike Things’ featuring Kardashian offspring North West. In their place are four new additions: the previously released ‘Perfectly’; ‘The Dare’, which keeps the delicate aura of ‘Girl Feels Good’ but trades its confidence for the raw neediness of missing a lover; ‘Got to Feel’; and new closer ‘Lonely But Exciting Road’, which follows the reflective tone of ‘Wanderlust’ and ends on a hopeful note.
The new tracks do not feel like they have been thrown in for the sake of it, and they slot naturally among the originals. She also recruits Eartheater for a new version of ‘Striptease’, though it does not add much. It all feels a little pointless, and these extras might have worked better as a short B-sides EP to expand the EUSEXUA era and squeeze a bit more from it later down the line.
Overall, Twigs has not quite captured the same attention she did with EUSEXUA in its original form. Afterglow is a decent companion piece, but the rejig of the first album feels more like fan service than a meaningful expansion. That said, it is still refreshing not to have to wait years for a new project from her, and Afterglow proves that Twigs’ world is still very much alive and evolving, even if the lights have come up.
3/5
