Fetch The Bolt Cutters by Fiona Apple

Fetch The Bolt Cutters, Fiona Apple’s fifth studio album, took five years to create and only a day or two to become one of the best, universally acclaimed albums of 2020. It was released on April 17, about a month into the Covid–19-related lockdown in the United States. At the time, we had no idea how long this thing was going to last, and we hadn’t yet properly adjusted to the slower, insulated pace of working from home. The album’s title and theme, as stated by Apple, “Fetch the fucking bolt cutters and get yourself out of the situation you’re in.”

Knowing that the theme had been established well before the coronavirus had hit and we didn’t know what was coming, that’s one hell of a serendipitous coincidence. Screenwriter/author Bess Kalb said it best when she tweeted on the day of the release, “Fiona Apple was waiting for the entire world to descend into restless melancholic rage and then once we all started pacing in our kitchens in our underwear in the middle of the night she was like, ‘You’re ready.’”

I’ve been a devoted fan of Apple’s since her third album, Extraordinary Machine, which came out in 2005 after two years of fights with her label and the online leak of the original recordings in 2003 before Apple re-recorded everything and released it in earnest. It’s a great story about a great album, and she hooked me with all of it. Her even better fourth album, The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than The Driver Of The Screw & Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do, was my #1 album of 2012. It’s been 8 years since that album came out, and aside from a duet with Andrew Bird on his 2016 album Are You Serious (#5 that year), we’d not heard much from Apple since that last album, which made the release of Bolt Cutters all the more unexpectedly perfect.

The album takes cues from The Idler Wheel’s sparse compositions, but Apple explores more of her raw and wild side on the newer album. Lots of non-musical objects became fodder for Apple to clang, beat and hammer on while she recorded the bulk of the record from her home using GarageBand on her Mac. Other found / unexpected sounds permeate the album, such as a kennel full of barking dogs at the end of the title song.

The album felt perfect for 2020 in so many ways, as if Apple had been living in self-inflicted isolation in preparation for what was to come. Since putting it at my #2 for the year, I see that Pitchfork ranked it #1, and NPR also ranked it #2, so I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. Maybe you don’t. Maybe you need polish, something “clean” to wash away the insanity of 2020. But for me I like to get address the insanity head on. (As if reading my other reviews from this year didn’t already inform you of that fact.) Immersing myself in the insanity just a bit helps me process it, and I’m so glad Fiona was there to hold my hand. I’m guessing you have a lot left to process from 2020, too, so please allow me to point you to Fetch The Bolt Cutters. You won’t be disappointed.

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1. Saint Cloud by Waxahatchee
2. Fetch The Bolt Cutters by Fiona Apple
3. Punisher by Phoebe Bridgers
4. folklore + evermore by Taylor Swift
5. Untitled (Black Is) + Untitled (Rise) by Sault
6. RTJ4 by Run The Jewels
7. Shore by Fleet Foxes
8. Serpentine Prison by Matt Berninger
9. The Ascension by Sufjan Stevens
10. Making a Door Less Open by Car Seat Headrest
11. Dreamland by Glass Animals
12. A Hero’s Death by Fontaines D.C.
13. Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez by Gorillaz
14. Mordechai + Texas Sun EP by Khruangbin
15. Introduction, Presence by Nation of Language
16. Free Love by Sylvan Esso
17. Miss Anthropocene by Grimes
18. 3.15.20 by Childish Gambino
19. Women In Music Pt. III by HAIM
20. The Third Mind by The Third Mind
21. Superstar by Caroline Rose
22. Impossible Weight by Deep Sea Diver
23. We Will Always Love You by The Avalanches
24. Ultra Mono by IDLES
25. Visions of Bodies Being Burned by clipping.
26. Thin Mind by Wolf Parade
27. The Loves of Your Life by Hamilton Leithauser
28. Palo Alto (Live) by Thelonious Monk
29. color theory by Soccer Mommy
30. Fall to Pieces by Tricky
31. Quarantine Casanova by Chromeo

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