Girl Trouble

Have 10p Records/Fontana

7.99 on Amazon

Rating: HHHHn

Sure,our tastes are defiantly stranded in the female pop-rock bracket of western music Florence and the Machine,Regina Spektor and Fiona Apple among others. The music is defiant and vocals extraordinaire.

And British musician Kate Nash was an obvious darling. We were exposed,in our teens,to her writhing vocals and feminist riot girl ethos in her first two albums Made of Bricks 2007 and My Best Friend is You 2010. The first thing that strikes an ardent lover of Nashs pop shenanigans is how her latest album Girl Talk is radically different from the others.

Nashs fame goes back to 2005 when she broke out on MySpace.com and her first album was a huge commercial hit year. Girl Talk,despite not being Nashs signature,is that unexpected thrill. The very first song Part Heart sets the mood for the whole album. The musician is in a dark place here8211; personal and intimate,slow yet steady,equipped with heavy bass,wondrously rock and clipped lyrics clearly about a breakup A part heart is living/ A part heart is dead/ And the part of my heart/You used to love,it fled.

Fri-end is a playful twist,almost waking one up from the slumber the first song had. Sister goes back to the dark side initially,but then almost immediately jumps to a bipolar high,rife with her throaty voice. OMYGOD! is a similar flux,from slow and steady to danceable chord progression,a refreshing piece in a line-up of otherwise grey shades. Labyrinth is a brilliant one in this grey area with an Alfred Hitchcock background score-ish tune in the beginning,ominous chimes and single drum beats,easily progressing with succinct lyrics and low-key vocals.

All Talk sounds angry with a repetitive Action,action,action/ Words are only in my mouth,an apt mnemonic to her feminist outbursts. Rap for Rejection,on the other hand,is exactly what it says its a rap,on the issues of sexism.

Its disappointing how little thought has gone into the lyrics Youre trying to tell me sexism doesnt exist?/ If it doesnt,then what the is this?,but the banality is made up for by grungy electric guitar and a monotonous yet husky vocals,which goes smoothly with hipster beats.

Pieces such as Youre So Cool,Im so Freaky and Lullaby for an Insomniac are rare examples of an unfussy Nash,where instruments are next to nothing and her sweet voice looms.

While the former is almost anthematic with chorus,the latter has no instruments,and she sounds like shes merely singing an insomniac self to sleep. The final number Death Proof is an unforgettable one,because the garage rock number is all noir and haze,and harps back to the Quentin Tarantinos 2007 film of the same name about a psychopathic killer. The album demands more than one listen,rightly so.

Listen to her if the defiance of Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus feels viscerally frivolous.

Her feminist banter might get too much,but she has grown up,even though it is a rather melancholic-goth kind of growth.

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