Partway through her second album, Nadine Shah murmurs, half to herself: “My mother would be so ashamed of me if I didn’t act in a classy kind of way.” It’s a gorgeous moment, private yet open, and all the more perfect because classy is exactly what these passion-drenched yet poised songs are – even the ones that sneer at pretentious men, excoriating their shallow ways. Fool bristles at one who woos by delivering “regurgitated lines from St Nick Cave”, barbed guitar slashing across limber bass notes; Washed Up is coolly taunting of another, reaching the glum conclusion that there’s no point waiting for “the one”. So Shah often comes across as agitated and betrayed by love: in the film-noir rush of Stealing Cars, her voice yearning over clattery percussion; or the way Divided (about a long-distance relationship) and the strikingly sultry Big Hands erupt with melodies that run counter to each song’s rhythm. But still she falls, helplessly, as if hypnotised, a motion she celebrates in Nothing Else to Do with such perfumed languor that it’s hard not to fall in love back.
