The Altar – this year’s follow up to 2014’s Goddess – is a true emotional roller coaster – in the best way possible. Still dark. Still emotional. Still raw. What used to be conveyed with a whisper is now a shout – and she’s being blatantly honest about the psychological tirade that comes with simply being a woman with a broken heart.
Let me start by saying this review could be somewhat biased, because I am a ridiculously huge fan of singer-songwriter Jillian Banks. I discovered her a few summers back when I moved to Chicago in 2013. A friend and I were doing our usual music swap and he introduced me to her starting with “Brain”.
Subliminally complex enough that a woman can mentally elaborate what she means – but simple enough for a man to just get the damn point. I was captivated by her repeated use of layering, synth, and vocal progression to convey these powerful messages about love and loss.
But please don’t think she’s just a classic case of breathy vocals, drowned out by overproduction, with a pretty face – she’s actually the real deal. Her acoustic renditions of her songs are quite possibly better than the studio, and I’ve been lucky enough to catch her live – BOTH ways – to say that it’s 100% true.
With that being said, her strong track record of material (and equally stunning music videos) led me to believe that this new album would be quite the evolution of a goddess into something even more powerful.
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