Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	70/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Clash	7/10
DIY
Drowned in Sound	8/10
The Guardian
Pitchfork	5.1/10
PopMatters
Q
Rolling Stone
Sputnikmusic	4.9/5

The Altar is the second studio album by American singer and songwriter Banks, released on September 30, 2016 by Harvest Records. Producers Tim Anderson and Al Shux have worked on the album, who also contributed to Banks' debut studio album, Goddess.

On November 4, 2015, Banks released the single "Better", along with its accompanying music video. Banks toured with The Weeknd for a second time, opening for him on his The Madness tour across North America from November to December 2015. She announced on June 8, 2016 that she had finished work on her second album. On July 29, Banks revealed that the album would be titled The Altar, along with its cover art and release date.

The lead single from the album, "Fuck with Myself", was released on July 12, 2016. Banks premiered the track on Zane Lowe's Beats 1 radio show, where she noted it was the last song she wrote for the album. "There's so many meanings to it", she said of the song. "It could be like, 'I fuck with myself', like, 'I mess with myself more than anybody else.' It could be, 'I fuck with myself', kind of like, 'I'm feeling myself.' It means a lot of different things that I think a lot of people can relate to." The album's second single, "Gemini Feed", premiered on Annie Mac's BBC Radio 1 show on August 2, 2016, and was released digitally the following day. "Mind Games" was released as the third single from the album on August 19, 2016, followed by "To the Hilt" on September 16, 2016. The song, "Trainwreck", had a music video released on January 18, 2017.

The Altar received generally positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 70, based on 17 reviews. Jamie Milton of DIY magazine wrote that "when going for the jugular, BANKS combines unbending confidence, detail and gigantic choruses in the same move", adding that "The Altar is very close to being a razor-sharp pop blueprint." George Garner of Q magazine called the album "[s]tunning", stating that "Banks has excelled at transforming accrued romantic scarring into mesmeric songcraft" and "The Altar marks a radical intensification of her talents". Neil Z. Yeung of AllMusic opined that "Banks has strengthened her voice—resolutely and with increased production value—in the two years since her debut Goddess." Shahzaib Hussain of Clash viewed The Altar as "more textured and artful than Goddess, BANKS growing into her role as a writer, upholding the sensual melancholia that characterised her debut."

...
Wikipedia