BANKS release new single 'Love Is Unkind' with fifth album to follow in February
Image: Charlie Denis
Published: 20 January 2025
Singer-songwriter BANKS has released her new single ‘Love Is Unkind’, the third single from her upcoming fifth studio album Off With Her Head, due for release on 28 February.
It is a moody, glitchy electronica track which starts with just BANKS’ voice and distorted synths before sliding into a electronic beat that becomes gradually more complex, with a distorted repetition of the song’s title becoming an addictive riff throughout the track.
BANKS sings of a relationship that only after it is over can she look back and realise how bad it was. ‘I did what you said and got caught…You play like you're so innocent, but you're not / You think you're so articulate, but you're not.’
“‘Love Is Unkind’ is about an emotionally dangerous relationship that had me running around in circles,” BANKS says. “It’s about how love can be unkind and masochistic. Rewinding your memory and seeing things clearly.”
‘Love Is Unkind’ will feature on BANKS’ fifth studio album Off With Her Head which will be released on 28 February. It will be her first album release since 2022’s Serpentina and will also include her previous two singles, the melancholy electro-ballad ‘Best Friends’ and the thumping, grimy ‘I Hate Your Ex-Girlfriend’. As can be heard on ‘Love Is Unkind’, this next chapter in her music is sonically reminiscent of her first studio album, 2014’s Goddess, which BANKS celebrated the tenth anniversary of last year with the release of an acoustic version Goddess: Unplugged.
“In many ways, it’s a big sister album to Goddess,” BANKS says of Off With Her Head. “After a decade apart, I’ve reunited with the core musicians and producers who helped shape my debut. At the same time, it’s something entirely different - I’ve grown so much as an artist and a person, and the journey is documented in all these sounds.”
One of pop’s most eclectic artists with music that is dark and enigmatic as well as being highly relatable and mesmerising, ‘Love Is Unkind’ and BANKS upcoming album is shaping up to be some of her best yet.
‘Love Is Unkind’ is out now via ADA. You can buy and stream here.
Off With Her Head will be released on 28 February. You can pre-order and pre-save now
