Amid our new reality of social distancing and total isolation, it is fitting that music’s most infamous introvert should choose right now to break her silence. Fiona Apple’s first album since 2012, “Fetch the Bolt Cutters,” was recorded in her Venice home and quite literally captures the sounds of homeliness: using the acoustics of her walls, the floors, and even the percussion of her late dog’s bones. Once gawked at for her willing seclusion, Apple’s internalized passion and rage has now emerged as the sound of the current moment.
The album’s title comes from a line spoken by a sex crimes investigator on the British crime show “The Fall,” after finding a locked door hiding a tortured girl. Apple’s intentions are clear: like her previous records, she explores relationships, femininity, and the patriarchy. But in 2020 she is more assured of herself than ever. Nothing is surprising to her anymore, she can only reconcile with the injustices in front of her. “Fetch the Bolt Cutters” simmers a lifetime of female experience and emotion into a modern, eclectic and overall enjoyable record.
The record brings a new urgency to issues that most women have either faced themselves or have witnessed in women close to them. From her own rape, a friend’s rape, Brett Kavanaugh, self-doubt, and even female in-fighting — Apple is somehow able to cover the myriad conflicts of the female experience in under an hour and with unwavering textural clarity.
The record is self-satisfying in a way that many timeless artifacts are. Unconcerned with the constraints of rigid music histories and techniques. Instead, it incorporates the mild flaws and sounds of everyday life, ranging from the echoes of her home-cum-recording studio, the bark of domestic pets and unheld laughter. This album tells real stories.
Apple delivers an endless slew of insights on the realities of toxic masculinity and modern feminism with the monotonous actualization of Patti Smith, Joan Baez, and female singer-poet predecessors. On “Rack of His” she handles a past breakup with a fellow musician by pointing out his oppressive fixation on his guitar collection: “I thought you would wail on me like you wail on them.” The line reads both parts somber and amusing. The chorus of “Under The Table,” sees Apple stand up to an ignorant dinner party guest, repeating matter-of-factly, “Kick me under the table all you want, I won’t shut up.” Her delivery oozes with a confidence that begs the subject to second guess her.
What gives Apple’s lyrics their unique depth, however, is the deeply moving poetry interspersed among these witty one-liners. “Evil is a relay sport when the one that’s burned turns to pass the torch,” she repeats at the opening of “Relay,” a song Apple wrote as a teen that’s an ode to moving on and rising up. In an interview with Vulture she explains that she wrote what is, in my opinion, one of the most simple yet profound lyrics on the whole album in a flurry of emotional creativity at the ripe age of 15. The rest of the song merely builds on this anecdote using her additional life experience, and oftentimes with even less emotional clarity and maturity: “I resent you for being raised right/ I resent you for being tall.” These critiques are overwhelmingly trivial in contrast to the assumed abuse they’ve subjected our narrator to. Which is, of course, the point: despite her uncanny ability to weave intelligent poetry throughout her life experiences, Apple is still human. She expresses her rage as anyone would. And yet, along with the other women that she champions, she stands tall among a culture that shows little sympathy for petty rage or even blatant assault.
The inclusion of other womens’ stories on the record contributes towards its sheer scope of experience. On “For Her,” a chorus of female voices finally hold a woman’s boss accountable for raping her. It’s an accusation so simple and forthright that you can’t help listening in. It’s an act of catharsis, an act of restorative justice. Once again, Apple has managed to put song and lyric to a feeling unfortunately shared by a majority of her female listeners. She is relatable while sharing a uniquely personal story, insightful yet never overdone or corny.
Every song feels essential, hardly anything is trivial. Perhaps our only respite exists in “Drumset,” where Apple mourns the loss of her beloved drum set by exploring her own feelings of petty self-consciousness. Yet, this too is an essential part of life. Feelings of inadequacy, of loss, of second-guessing oneself. In so many words, it expresses a particular stage of a fallen relationship, after it has expired but before rage has set in.
It is not easy, especially for a figure as polarizing as Fiona Apple, to write a feminist epic with both simplicity and nuance. So much of the female experience has been boiled down and bubbled over to varying degrees of reception. These myriad feelings — hatred, rejection, blame, disgust, resentment, ambivalence, acceptance, and grace — have all been sung before. And yet, “Fetch the Bolt Cutters” has risen from the #MeToo movement, from genuine social distance, and the trials of relationships lived to become a cultural soundtrack for a range of emotions both intangible and unintelligible.