Album #342: Nadine Shah – Kitchen Sink

• Released: 2020
• Origin: Whitburn, Tyne and Wear, England
• Label: Infectious
• Best Track: Ukrainian Wine

I suppose this blog was started in the spirit of listening to music outside of my normal punk, post-punk, shoegaze, alt-rock etc circles. Nadine Shah perhaps represents that, as someone I would have been unlikely to listen to this time last year.

It’s been six months since her fourth album Kitchen Sink was released. I didn’t really know what to expect from it, having barely listened to her before.

My first thought is I probably need more time to take in the lyrics to songs like ‘Ladies for Babies’ and ‘Prayer Mat’, but you know, the whole one album per day thing isn’t always conducive to that and I often end up having to bang out reviews having not given albums the time they deserve.

My instant favourites are the clanging guitars of the title track, and the hypnotic ‘Ukrainian Wine’ . The latter has that droning, repetitive African/Middle Eastern sound that in a funny way I can liken to krautrock.

One of those “why didn’t I listen to this earlier?” moments, but in a way it’s nice to have music I’m still in the process of discovering.