FKA Twigs has returned with a new single just before the year end - 'Tears in the Club'. The single completes her 2021 trio of bold, striking collabs. Where 'Don't Judge Me' with Headie One went profound / vulnerable and 'Measure of a Man' with Central Cee sounded triumphant / elegant, Twigs this time pairs with The Weeknd to create a track sensual and glittering - the raw, lusting, hedonistic aesthetic emphasised in an accompanying video.
It's a collaboration executed with seeming ease, both artists sounding at home over flexing synths and drums, and glinting keys that heighten the enthralling tensioning of the track's thirsting atmosphere. The video comprises seductive flashes of wet skin, limbs snatched, bodies contorting and tears rolling, perfectly capturing the bondage to a passion-instinct conveyed in the lyrics: "I wanna get you out of my hips, my thighs, my hair, my eyes, my late-night cries". The obsession is physical to the point of debilitating. Like her jigsawed face at the start of the video, Twigs' very self is ripped (tear-ed) apart - the part that laments her destruction at the hands of a love that has her "fucked up" is just a passenger to the overriding, driving passion characterised by her childish, coquettish adlibs: "Ayy, I love and want your body, I'll never leave you now".
The Weeknd adds to the narrative with taunting jibes in his verse, Twigs' unravelling an entertainment for him: "Oh, there's no, no escapin' me, yeah, let it out like therapy". The pairs' vocals blend smoothly on the hooks as they echo one another's cries, their chemistry carrying over to the music video. Having said that, the scene where The Weeknd slow-runs, with a fake-terrified expression, from a giantess FKA Twigs is really odd albeit hilarious.
'Tears In The Club' comes from FKA Twigs' upcoming mixtape, CAPRI SUN, which she has called “deep, emotional and honest”. And that can only mean good things, following the stellar quality of Twig's deep, emotional and honest releases thus-far.