The most jaw-dropping song on Nadine Shah’s fifth album, amid stiff competition, comes right at the end. French Exit, the term referring to the practice of leaving a party without telling anybody, is used here to refer to a suicide attempt the South Tyneside musician made in 2022. Over stark synth loops, she recalls the mundanity of the moment with blank eyes: “A quiet little way out/Nothing explicit/Nina to drown the noise out.”
In the four years since her last release, Shah has also been married and divorced, spent time in a rehab facility and taken care of her mother while she lost her life to cancer. It’s no wonder Filthy Underneath feels like it had no choice but to be her most personal, bleakest collection.
Past albums have drawn from her own experiences as a mixed race British Muslim woman but also looked at the big picture. Holiday Destination, from 2017, had a bombed-out building in Gaza on the cover and tackled immigration, Trump and Brexit. In 2020, Kitchen Sink found her examining the expectations placed on thirtysomething women.
This time indie guitars are thinner on the ground. Shah regularly collaborates with Depeche Mode producer Ben Hillier and has recently been supporting the band on an arena tour. Hyperrealism has their cold, synthesized grandeur, a mournful ballad that tackles her divorce and shows her powerful voice at its finest. You Drive, I Shoot is full of metronomic beats and robotic rhythms, reflecting the repetitive, medicalised final months of her mother’s life. The harmonies of Food for Fuel have the Sufi feel of her Pakistani heritage.
Despite the subject matter, there is still room for musical exhilaration and a little humour. The gibberish chorus of Topless Mother will be a fun singalong at her gigs: “Verruca! Tequila! Banana! Alaska! Medusa! Gorilla!” Sad Lads Anonymous is a self-deprecating spoken word journey through post-punk: “The band left hours ago, according to the work experience kid that I’m currently telling all my deepest darkest secrets to in a toilet cubicle. So damn typical.”
Greatest Dancer recounts the regular respite she enjoyed with her mother, when they would watch Strictly Come Dancing together. It has thunderous glam rock drums, a wasp’s nest of synths and more formidable singing.
Given her recent experiences, it’s remarkable that Shah is working at all, let alone processing her trauma through some of her finest songs. Rock bottom has proved fertile ground.
