Welcome to Janky Fresh Friday- the busiest day of the week for artists and labels to drop newly released music. Check in every Friday for a fresh squeeze.
As part of Janky Smooth’s Janky Fresh Friday series, we’ve been comparing two albums that come out on the same day and seemingly have nothing in common- for the sole purpose of discovering the wealth of similarities between two disparate things.
In some respects, it’s an exercise in empathy, learning how to appreciate differences, placing yourself in the shoes of a different subculture, and putting forth an effort to celebrate music as a whole.
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Today’s albums for Friday, November 7th, 2025, are releases from two of the most forward-thinking and strongest personalities in music pop culture at the moment, Orville Peck for country music and FKA Twigs for art-pop music. While Orville Peck’s release Appaloosa is just an EP and FKA Twigs’ newest album Eusexua Afterglow appears to be a sister album to her previous release, both of these releases are more groundbreaking staples in these artists’ discographies than you would expect.
Orville Peck: Appaloosa (released November 14, 2025): Warner Records
Don’t miss Orville Peck live!
11/14 – Pappy & Harriet’s, Pioneertown
11/15 – Pappy & Harriet’s, Pioneertown
11/16 – Pappy & Harriet’s, Pioneertown
When Orville Peck’s 2019 album Pony came out, introducing the mysterious masked singer to the world, it was a revelation across underground and country music simultaneously. It provided Los Angeles natives with a soundtrack to cruising through the once cowboy-infested streets of Hollywood with just as much meaning as it imparted to lonely farmers in Montana riding horses through the “Dead of Night.” Everything about the album and the singer was authentically him and totally fresh to music as a whole. Arriving on the scene like a lucha libre, no one knew who the singer was and no one had seen a gimmick like this before. Six years later, the gimmick has been imitated but the sound is still all his own.
related: Who Is Orville Peck? Pink Sunsets Over the OC Observatory
Today, Orville Peck has transitioned into acting, perfectly cast as another masked dynamo in the form of the Spanish romantic and clawed cretin Vega in Street Fighter. As much as music heads can’t wait to see him crawl up cages like a spider and dive into opponents’ heads claw first, while we wait we’ve been treated to a new EP called Appaloosa for today’s Janky Fresh Friday.
Are the Lynchian vibes that Orville once mastered on Pony still as haunting now that David Lynch is dead? Do the American people still desire mystery after the surprises of covid lockdowns and the incoming subversion of the AI age? Or do they want things as surface level and obvious as possible, where you get exactly what you see?
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Appaloosa’s first song is “Dreaded Sundown,” a track that feels like the soundtrack to something. It’s theatrical and baroque, moody yet sensitive. The haunting guitars eventually turn into a crushing medley of noise to illustrate dark clouds gathering just before the song ends and leaves the haunt lingering.
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“Drift Away,” the EP’s single, is next. It’s partly a song about drifting away in the form of leaving your home. If one thing was for sure about the covid lockdowns or the Los Angeles fires, it’s that they displaced people from their homes. Whether voluntarily or not, people slowly but surely removed every trace of themselves from here until not a speck remained of their presence. The song isn’t just about physically drifting though. It’s also about dissociation, your mind drifting as a coping mechanism. This is usually a lonely process, but in this track Orville offers to join you in your cope.
The next song features Noah Cyrus, current sister of Miley and former girlfriend of Lil Xan, an underground sensation. Atchafalaya is a swamp and river basin in south-central Louisiana. It’s also the name of this song. The lyrics read like a ballad, telling a story in the tradition of old cowboy country music the way it was designed. Noah discovers her musical purpose and gift in this track. She should take this ball and run with it. She has a beautiful and storied voice for country, sounding so innocent and American, a damsel in the beats and cowgirl in the sheets.
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“Maybe This Time” is the album’s slow romantic jam. It sounds like he’s softly singing to someone in the studio we can’t see because you feel he means his words. Orville lets himself be totally vulnerable on this track, admitting failures, letting his voice show weakness when it’s effective, unmasking himself somewhat, at least vocally. This isn’t an Orville Peck song the way the others are. This isn’t his character singing. This is the man behind the mask taking the microphone.
“Oh My Days,” another song about reverie in New York City, is a reflection of the past and an admittance of one’s own failures but also of their perseverance. It’s a sleeper nominee for best moment of the EP and perhaps the most illustrative track when it comes to the movie Orville Peck is trying to get audiences to see when putting this EP on.
“My Side of the Mountain” begins with an all-timer lyric:
I’ve seen the best and worst of men
I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain
But I can’t comprehend where to go
This again is a song about looking back at one’s life. Recognizing how far you’ve come and owning your accomplishments without caring how the world views you.
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That self reflection comes to an end with “It’s the End of the World,” the album’s closer. This is the song that leads the cowboy out of the town to ride into the sunset after they’ve defeated all the bad boys. With the end of the world ahead, Orville asserts they have nothing to lose and should abandon any reservations about not living life to the fullest. It’s up to the listener then to join Orville in that sunset he’s riding into. After all, it may be the last one.
Appaloosa is Orville’s most human musical output. With each release, the mystery unravels a bit more to show the face of the man behind the music, regardless of whether we ever see him without his mask. Coming into the album, I wondered how much his country western sound would’ve been compromised by the hipsterizing forces of Los Angeles and New York. The answer is only a little. He’s a midnight cowboy in a sense, never losing his roots and identity, whether that’s of the character or the actual man. Orville has still retained his edge over the years, and although he’s evolved to make more personal music, there seems to be no drying up of the wells of inspiration to stop him from contributing to Americana in his own moody, unique way.
FKA Twigs: Eusexua Afterglow (released November 14, 2025): Young Recordings Ltd.
FKA Twigs’ third album Eusexua was definitely one of the most talked about albums of this last year by far, now being nominated for multiple Grammys and known for its incredibly theatrical structure that tells a vulnerable narrative about pursuing spiritual transcendentalism through sex and hedonism. Despite this album’s name Eusexua Afterglow being incredibly similar, you can throw out any expectations that the previous album set up. While this fourth release Eusexua Afterglow is considered by Twigs to be a “sister album” or a “sequel”, there is very little that links these two albums together in their structure, production, or even just overall sound.
FKA Twigs relates the two albums through the theme of her concept of “eusexua”, being the moment of tranquility and focus before orgasm, while Afterglow is meant to resemble the feelings of being out too late at The Afters post-raving. While it sounds kind of ridiculous on paper, the different listening experiences between these two albums really do reflect these two different stories she’s telling.
This vast departure from the similarly named previous album Eusexua is one of the album’s greatest strengths however. In a modern hyper-consumerist pop world where artists like Sabrina Carpenter and Taylor Swift are pumping out albums of B-Sides every year to maximize profits in sacrifice of their artistic integrity, FKA Twigs is here releasing two albums in the same year that are completely different experiences; almost created for completely different audiences. I’m usually against artists releasing two albums this close to each other as it can create oversaturation for fans, but this is a completely new project for her that only adds to the momentum of pop stardom she’s currently experiencing.
Many would probably argue that she should have named the album something completely different in order to avoid confusion. This is much more than just a sister album or sequel, and it’s kind of sad that she didn’t give it the proper distinct marketing that it deserves. I suppose this will make it a prime choice for the “cult classic” amongst her fanbase, and it instantly proves itself as deserving that unique charming title upon first listen.
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Eusexua Afterglow opens completely different than the minimalist intro we saw from her previous album, throwing the listener right into the middle of the dancefloor of a late-night rave with its heavy drums and faster BPM than most of the music we’ve ever seen from her. She wants you to know right away with “Love Crimes” that you’re here to experience a wild dance party rather than the more sensual experience of the original Eusexua. You would think that FKA Twigs’ main focus has always been making dance music for underground clubs with how effortlessly she embodies that world here, and personally I’m hoping she explores this side of her sound just as much as she’s explored the more theatrical avant-garde elements.
The track “Wild And Alone”, the only one on the album featuring any guest artist, is easily one of the more notable of the first half of the album due to the appearance of one of England’s other biggest pop acts currently, PinkPantheress. This being the only guest feature on the track really says so much about Eusexua Afterglow overall, as her more lighthearted garage and house influenced dance style would not have fit on the previous Eusexua. This is a dance album more than a concept album. It may be a part of the previous album’s concept, but it stands on its own as music for the nightclubs. PinkPantheress‘ signature style of her upbeat poppy flow over bright synths takes over this track completely and it was clearly written around her presence, but she fits in perfectly here and Twigs couldn’t have picked a better guest to represent the current state UK dance music.
The brighter electrohouse influence seen from PinkPantheress’ appearance continues into the next club banger Hard before FKA Twigs dives deep into more tranquil ambient and trip-hop moments as she reaches the middle of the album, starting with the track “Cheap Hotel”. It starts at a rapid breakbeat rave speed before gradually slowing down to a more stoney pace with chopped-and-screwed samples really resembling 90’s trip-hop greats like Portishead with how immersive the atmosphere becomes.
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This trip-hop atmosphere seamlessly transitions into the next track “Touch A Girl” before returning to the brighter glitchy house influence with “Predictable Girl”, one of the standout tracks on the album that manages to create a perfect balance of upbeat production with more ethereal ASMR-esque vocals to embody a dreamy haze-filled night of raving. The vibrant energy picks up even more with the second half of “Sushi”, almost to the obnoxious level of 90’s europop influence in my opinion. Regardless, she is representing the more noise-y and avant-garde elements of the hyperpop you hear at underground queer clubs on this one with its higher pitched vocals and heavy thumping in-your-face repetition. She’s very familiar with the deep cultural roots of the sounds she’s incorporating here, which is one of the most important qualities a pop star could have.
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The finale of the album “Stereo Boy” really lays the PC Music hyperpop influence down on thick, with its slow distorted synthesizers that gradually get noisier and FKA Twigs playing up a more exaggerated UK accent pronouncing each word in the most offensively British manner possible (ala Hannah Diamond, GFOTY). The track is so drone-y and almost shoegaze-esque that it kind of comes as a shock once the album abruptly comes to an end, almost like the song is about to lead into something more exciting to dance to. In the theme of the album, this ending could not be more fitting. Especially when partying into the early mornings at the rave Afters, the night does always seem to end in a hazey stoned whimper rather than the explosive fun that you expected you were staying up all night for. Continuing the themes of her last album about pursuing spiritual transcendence through sexual experiences, you are left with a disappointing yet somewhat beautiful confusion by the end of everything.
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Will fans like this release or the “original” Eusexua more? It all depends on their taste in music outside of Twigs actually, rather than the elements they like about her specifically. Both albums do explore how much she can distort the preconceived notions of dance music with her avant-garde experimentation of sound and layering between her synths and vocals, but Afterglow is much heavier than its sister album. If you enjoy the higher production theatrical elements of pop music with backup dancers that you would see on a stadium tour, then the original Eusexua is certainly more up your alley. Afterglow creates an atmosphere that you would be more likely to experience in a warehouse or rave setting. Considering FKA Twigs did just wrap up her main Eusexua tour, a sequel tour of club DJ sets would be an amazing move to widen her musical pedigree and expand on the aura she has created for herself.
Don’t miss FKA Twigs live!
4/12 – Coachella Festival
4/19 – Coachella Festival
Personally I prefer the Afterglow of Eusexua compared to the original, as certain tracks on the first album like “Keep It, Hold It” sound a bit too much like watching an interpretive dance break in the middle of a broadway performance for my taste while Afterglow is full of tracks that legitimately feel like being on the dancefloor of a rave Afters event at 3:00 AM without the calculated fluff we see on the previous album. The first Eusexua has the sort of energy of experiencing a high-production fancy runway show, while Eusexua Afterglow resembles the crazy afterparty you would find yourself at afterwards. They both have their place in her artistic world and both are riveting experiences in their own right, but they are two different parties that the listener is visiting. We recommend attending both of them.
Orville Peck review by Rob Shepyer
FKA Twigs review by Danny Ryan
