A few of years ago I was lucky enough to see The Weeknd in concert at The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles during his The Fall tour, he had only two opening acts which he interchanged between cities: Banks and Hasley. I had the pleasure to have Banks as the opening act at our show.
Banks, who's real name is Jillian Rose Banks, came onto the stage in a simple all black ensemble and began to put her spell on the crowd with her melancholy sound. Heavy in bass with deep R&B roots, she swayed and poured herself onto us. I was immediately entranced. I am a sucker for a sad girl and Banks was singing her broken heart to us that night. It was beautiful and, like I said before, entrancing.
Enough about my falling in obsesssion with her, let's get to why I'm writing about her to begin with. Ms. Banks is releasing a new album at the end of this month (9/30), the album is entitled The Altar. The first single she released for this album was "Fuck with myself" which I will admit, sort of threw me off, especially compared to her first full length album Goddess. In this song she isn't just haunting us, she is really playing with our ears and her vocals...almost as in taunting lunacy. It's glorious, if you ask me...
I encourage you all to give her a whirl, and if you've already heard of her but never really got into her, or you didn't realize she was coming back... go dip into The Altar...
And don't pass up a chance to watch and listen to Gemini Feed, a single of hers that I absolutely consider to be a signature Banks.
