RTÉ 2XM's Kate Brennan-Harding interviewed Mercury-nominated artist Nadine Shah for her weekend show - listen to her interview with Nadine by clicking above, and read Kate's review of Nadine's new album Filthy Underneath below.
Filthy Underneath is Nadine Shah's fifth studio album, it comes after a time of intense and personal human suffering. Nadine battled substance addiction followed by a mental breakdown and decided to take her own life. I remember seeing her social media feed where it became clear how unwell she was. Thankfully she entered rehab, and the world still has the powerhouse, Nadine Shah.
She is one of those artists that I admire most, outspoken, considered, and incredibly generous with her truth. It has been 4 years since Shah released Kitchen Sink which she penned whilst looking after her terminally ill mother, it was at that time her substance abuse started, isolated and coping with future grief.
Her 2017 album Holiday Destination was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, the album was a triumph and my first introduction to the Tyneside warrior.
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So, now it is 2024 and Shah has delivered an album telling the story of her spiral into psychosis and her recovery. Filled to the brim with rushing warping invasive melodies, Shah gives free reign to her vocal abilities and in part, through art, offers a cathartic release that I personally could feel in my belly.
Opening with Even Light, we hear a bell sound, an announcement, immediately followed by a bass and drum that on first listen could perhaps be likened to Beck’s The New Pollution. As an opening track, it bristles with spikey horns and sharp edges, but Nadine’s voice is the force cutting through this sometimes-eerie noise.
The first single from the album was Topless Mother, released late last year, it begins with distorted drums, twanging guitar, almost tribal in parts. I love that we really hear her accent in this. Sharp and layered in sarcastic put downs, I love the line "When you were born, you broke the mould, another lie to you your mother told’. Nadine used her journaling to great avail when creating a song about speaking to her therapist.
Food For Fuel has a psychedelic disco era vibe; if you were to just listen to the melody, it is incredibly sexy.
Midway through Filthy Underneath and we get deeper into the under belly of this delicious album, the pace has slowed slightly, which is good for this listener as I try to catch every word she is uttering.
On Sad Lads Anonymous, Shah uses her voice in a monotone dialogue with her accent delivering the perfect cadence of nonchalance and spicy sass: 'I don’t want to hear it, keep your secrets’.
Greatest Dance is the latest single, one which makes me want to gather in a candle lit dance space, unobserved and lose myself in dance. The track is actually a commentary on male violence towards women and was inspired by when she took her mother's prescription medication and lost her mind whilst watching Strictly Come Dancing. I know the topic is dark and the inspiration also dark, but this song in energy sounds like a form of cathartic healing, a reclaiming of that energy only those who can call themselves survivors will understand.
Filthy Underneath is an extraordinary, raw, cathartic body of work filled with a powerful vulnerability. This album has me lost for words but filled with feelings, filled with delight for my ears and a swelling heart at the searing honesty which all who listen must surely find power in.
Nadine Shah plays Whelans, Dublin on 7th May 2024. Listen to Kate Brennan Harding on RTÉ 2XM on Saturdays at 10am, or listen back here.
