Fast Food
Nadine Shah
(Apollo)
Four stars
"Check your pulse when I speak," says Nadine Shah over the clattering Gothic groove of Stealing Cars. It is one of the numerous missives the English singer-songwriter – whose parents are from Pakistan and Norway – dedicates on her second album, Fast Food, to "you". Whoever he is, and it is clearly a man, he didn't treat the 29-year-old very well – and Shah is holding him to account. In the smouldering Fool, those spiky guitars are matched by another lyrical dressing down, with Shah declaring: "You, my sweet, are plain and weak/ Go let the other girls indulge the crap that you excrete." But Shah, a former jazz singer, is too smart to allow Fast Food to be a mere wallow-fest. As well as those big emotions, she is able to dial it back and be equally affective. In the haunting, acoustic-driven Divided, her husky vocals sound otherworldly as she turns the blame inward. In the closer, the rhythmic Living, Shah's voice soars as she begins to finds some of the wisdom accumulated from her trials. Vicious and hypnotic, Fast Food will leave you hungry for more.
[ sasaeed@thenational.ae ]
