It’s been seven years since Fiona Apple’s Extraordinary Machine and she’s used to
the time to craft an album that is sonically spare, lyrically dense; a work you
have to actively listen to instead of letting the easy pop melodies flow over
your skin without absorbing them. The Idler Wheel Is Wiser Than The Driver Of
The Screw And Whipping Cords Will Serve You More Than Ropes Will Ever Do (apparently
it’s 1999 again) is an album that demands to be listened to from the first
track (‘Every Single Night’) to the last (‘Hot Knife’) because it is not just a
collection of singles but a journey Apple tells of a hard won fight against her
neuroses (“every single night’s/ a fight/with my brain”) so her heart’s open
enough to let the good stuff in (“he makes my heart a cinemascope screen
showing a dancing bird of paradise”). The Idler Wheel is emotional without
being sentimental and delivers a truly deserving happy ending, well, as happy
an ending as Apple can deliver.
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