Fetch the Bolt Cutters

Fetch the Bolt Cutters is the fifth studio album by American singer-songwriter Fiona Apple. It was released on April 17, 2020, Apple's first release since The Idler Wheel… in 2012.
Apple began recording the album in 2015, producing and performing it alongside Amy Aileen Wood, Sebastian Steinberg and Davíd Garza. It features a percussive sound, and lyrically explores "not being afraid to speak".
The album received universal critical acclaim upon its release, becoming the first album in review aggregator Metacritic's history to receive a weighted average score of 100 upon its initial release.

In 2012, Apple began conceptualising a new album, considering a concept album based on her home in Venice Beach or the Pando in Utah.

In February 2015, she began rehearsals for the album with band members Sebastian Steinberg, Amy Aileen Wood and Davíd Garza. They began writing and rehearsing in Apple's Venice Beach home studio, using home-made percussive objects and chanting as they marched around the house.

In July they began recording the album, spending three weeks at the Sonic Ranch studio in rural Texas, with little success. A few months later, after returning to Venice Beach, they began making progress, with Apple recording long takes consisting of instruments being hit against surfaces and objects. Apple's vocals were unedited, and the album developed a highly percussive sound.

By July 2019, Apple had begun mixing the album. In September, the process began to slow down, with Apple developing doubts about the album. At this time, the artist first mentioned work on her new project in an interview with Vulture, explaining that she was still working hard on her next album which should have been released "a million years ago" and was hoping to put it out in 2020. She also admitted to being reclusive due to ongoing recording sessions at her Venice Beach house.

In January 2020, she played the mixes to her band members, whose positive response brought Apple back on track. In an interview that month, she said that the album process was in its final stages, with the only things left being "artwork and stuff". On March 9, 2020, she revealed that she had finished recording.

The album's sound is percussive and raw. Songs feature looped sections, and sudden tempo changes. Apple's long-time bassist Sebastian Steinberg compared the album to Apple's 2012 song "Hot Knife", describing it as "very raw and unslick". Lyrically, Apple identified its main theme as "not being afraid to speak". She also explores her complex social relationships with other women.

On March 16, 2020, Apple announced the album and its title in an extensive New Yorker profile. The title, Fetch the Bolt Cutters, is a quote from the British-Irish crime drama television series The Fall, where the protagonist, a sex-crimes investigator portrayed by Gillian Anderson, recites the phrase while investigating a crime scene where a woman was tortured. The next month, she announced that the album was set to be released digitally on April 17.

Fetch the Bolt Cutters was met with widespread acclaim upon its release, with many critics deeming it an instant classic, a masterpiece, and Apple's best work to date. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 100 based on 17 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim", and becoming the highest rated original album in the website's history.