As a mixed-race Muslim woman with a guitar, Nadine Shah is expected to have plenty to say about the political issues of the day.
Her last album, the ironically titled Holiday Destination, took an unflinching look at war zones, the refugee crisis and the racism she experienced growing up in South Tyneside. It was an exhilarating listen, never preachy, and ought to have won the Mercury Prize when it was nominated in 2018.
As she follows it up, there is no shortage of global turmoil to stoke creative fires, but instead she is working at a more intimate scale. Kitchen Sink, with its lurid cover evoking Seventies dinner parties, hostess trolleys and pineapple chunks on cocktail sticks, tackles the female role and asks if much has really changed.
At 34, she is feeling pressure to get cracking with motherhood — “I am aware of the passing of time,” she sings on Dillydally. “Shave my legs/Freeze my eggs/Will you want me when I am old?” she wonders over the propulsive drums of Trad.
As with its predecessor, it’s more fun than it might seem on paper. There’s humour when she skewers “curtain twitchers” on the title track and the use of the term “cougar” for a woman dating a younger man on the riotous opener, Club Cougar. She delights in a particularly bizarre image on the single Ladies for Babies (Goats for Love). Low, moody guitar lines are often tempered by danceable rhythms and shuddering blasts of horns. It’s about women, but it’s for everyone.
