The cover of her 2016 album The Altar presents Banks unadorned by the trappings of the typical pop diva. It’s this starkness that permeates her complex, emotional songcraft, with startlingly raw concepts that push and embrace the incredibly intelligent production into a genius elixir of technology and human drama. Her mastery of poetic openness draws the listener inside modernist beats by sprinkling trembling ribbons of libido over every emboldened chorus. The resulting magic is both addictively accessible and introspectively enlightening. Some critics may try to tag her sound as "alternative R&B" because of her white skin, but this label is just an extremely glib interpretation of what Banks' music represents—it’s an exciting expression of electronic soul injected with a warrior’s wisdom that breathes with an essential quality that is achingly absent from most mainstream avenues. by Chris Sutton