Nadine Shah - Food For Fuel 2024

Apocalyptic, "cyber", hieratic, urban, tribal, mental but at the same time visceral is "Filthy Underneath" by Nadine Shah Always the author of excellent works including "Love Your Dum And Mad" (2013), "Fast Food" (2015) and "Holiday Destination" (2017), Nadine Shah, with "Filthy Underneath" (EMI), becomes ecumenical, abandoning the more rock and acoustic declinations that had given life to songs such as "Dreary Town", "The Devil", "To Be a Young Man", "Fool", "Evil" ... and making a definitive "cybernetic" upgrade, he exasperates his writing with apocalyptic, hieratic, urban, tribal, mental but at the same time visceral tones and rings a sequence of lightning-fast, nitric and nitrent compositions that explode and impose themselves right from the splendid opening entrusted to "Even Light", in which the singing is exalted on a perfect rhythmic base, sealed by abrasive and incisive instrumental openings ... "Tame the favourite child/Overweight on praise/Go and throw him to the wild/Leave him there to graze". This is followed by the swirling "Topless Mother", with the sublime refrain "Sinatra, Viagra, iguana/Sharia, Diana, samosa/Varuca, Tequila, banana/Alaska, Medusa, gorilla". "Food for Fuel" is sinuous and fluctuating in the assonances of words and in the preciousness of electronics where "Human nature petty feud". The pace of "You Drive, I Shoot" is pure electro-rock steeped in industrial, which hides Kraut references of Kraftwerk matrix between the grooves. "Keeping Score" is another gem in its quiet invocation and exact melody: "The world is on fire/You are a lifeline/There's nothing that's painless/Look how I am trying/The world is on fire/Take one more good time/Contagious and nameless/Seeking the divine/The world is on fire/You are a lifeline". "Sad Lads Anonymous" is rhythmic and deconstructive for a spoken word in which "Or what's worse/Dying before your time or living beyond it".