Kate Nash - My Best Friend Is You Review

Though Lily Allen (more beats-driven) and Amy Winehouse (more bonkers) have grabbed the largest market share in the British Lady Invasion, tart 22-year-old songstress Nash deserves her own spotlight. My Best Friend Is You builds on her more conventional 2008 debut, Made of Bricks, with a punchy, almost dizzying mix of garage-rock bedlam, scene-skewering snap, and sweet girl-group melodies. B+...full text Hope you enjoy our new direction!" In one of many perfectly observed scenes in This Is Spinal Tap, those six words viciously skewered every artist who wants to escape from the sound that made them famous. And while Kate Nash may hardly be embarking on a Tap-style Jazz Odyssey, her new direction has been much chewed over in the past few weeks.

She's refused to play Foundations live, there's been talk of influences from Riot Grrl to Sonic Youth and the inevitable sexist mutterings about her boyfriend, Ryan Jarman from The Cribs, dictating her new sound. And while there's not enough here to scare any casual fans away, there's definitely a more abrasive edge to My Best Friend Is You which takes some getting used to.

But in Bernard Butler Nash has found her dream producer. In what is quickly becoming his trademark sound, the former Suede guitarist frames Nash against a backdrop of sweeping strings and a Phil Spector-like wall of sound. It works beautifully on tracks like Do Wah Doo and Paris, while Take Me To A Higher Plane adds a country hoe-down to the mix....full text Kate Nash has spent the three years since achieving fame cooking up a record that's a substantial progression from the rickety kitchen-sink pop of her No 1 debut. Not only has the sound been plumped up with girl-group strings – for which thank producer Bernard Butler – she's been listening to Bikini Kill and Sonic Youth and is consequently far more daring a writer and singer. Laced with reverb and dissonance, I Just Love You More could be a product of New York's no-wave era. Mansion Song starts with an expletive-filled rant aimed at male musicians who exploit female fans and ends with an explosive riot-grrrl chant. The "secret" in I've Got a Secret is never revealed, but the song is an intriguing mess: dreamy psychedelic vocals, fuzzy guitar and electronics. Only I Hate Seagulls, a list of small annoyances ("I hate burning my fingers on the toaster"), recalls the naive Nash of yore. A very pleasant surprise....full text