Fiona Apple’s First New Album in 8 Years Is Here!

If there’s one thing we love to see—or hear—in times like these, it’s new music from our favorite bands, especially the ones we grew up with. Nine Inch Nails dropped two new (and free) albums in March, and now another ’90s staple has mde her return. Fiona Apple has dropped her new album Fetch the Bolt Cutters, her first in eight years.

You can listen below via Spotify:


Apple announced the album early in April, against the wishes of her record label, who wanted her to save the album for October due to the coronavirus pandemic. But always one to rebel against authority, she’s releasing it anyway; for us, because we deserve something to get us through the current state of global affairs.

The announcement video was first posted on the Fiona Apple Rocks Tumblr page (which is adorable). On March 16, the same page shared titles for 11 of the 13 tracks on the album:

Newspaper (with harmony by Maude Maggart)
On I Go
The Drumset is Gone
Rack of His
Kick me Under the Table
Ladies
For Her
Shameka
Fetch the Bolt Cutters (with harmony by Cara Delevingne)
Heavy Balloon
I Want You to Love Me

Fetch the Bolt Cutters is Apple’s first album in eight years, after 2012’s The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than the Driver of the Screw and Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do. (If you’re a Fiona Apple fan, you know she has a think for super long album titles.) The new one gets its title from an unlikely source: it’s a line from Gillian Anderson in the British-Irish crime series The Fall. 

We’re so happy Apple is back making music. She had a rough few years after the death of her beloved dog Janet in 2012; the grief of that event caused her to cancel a tour and shut down. But many recent events sparked inspiration—everything from #MeToo to toxic friendships—and now her new album is complete. You can read more about her hardships and the road to this new phase of her musical career in Emily Nussbaum’s stunning recent profile in the New Yorker.

Featured Image: Epic Records