Sign up to Róisín O’Connor’s free weekly newsletter, Now Hear This, to stay up to date on all things music
Listen now Get your free email
The team behind Horrible Histories got it right when they cast Kate Nash as Boudica in the 2019 film Rotten Romans. Like the ancient Iceni queen, Nash (whose debut album, Made of Bricks, hit the charts at No. 1 in 2007) was dangerously underestimated by misogynists in both the industry and the media, but she refused to back down from the pop world. She shook her red hair at haters and continued to spit sarcastic, barbed, and defiantly English-accented lyrics at the world. Since then, she’s weathered not only being dropped by her original record label, but also the cancellation of her hit Netflix series, Glow, in which she starred as a female wrestler who learns to “make herself bigger and enjoy taking up space.”
Her fifth album, 9 Sad Symphonies, was written in the wake of that disappointment and during the pandemic, but its musical atmosphere is inspired by Hollywood romance. Imagine Boudica painted by a pleuraferite and you’ll get the feel of the record’s soft, swirling tentacles of strings and dreamily plucked harps. That said, there are also pounding electro beats to ensure the relatable rawness of everyday life comes through.
“Everything hurts, yeah, it hurts so much/Eating dinner in the toilet at lunchtime,” goes the wistful chorus of album opener “Millions of Heartbeats.” It’s a loneliness many of us have experienced, reminiscent of my own time hunched over in a cubicle at my first office job. Nash deftly places this mundane scene in the context of a bigger picture about the media’s support for “far-right scum” and whether we’ll remember our current loved ones when we die. This micro-to-macro story is reflected in the track’s Clean Bandit-esque electro-classical atmosphere, with cute, gleaming piano lines woven into it.
Lead single “Wasteman” sees Nash’s spirits soar even higher as she calmly takes aim at a man trying to undermine her confidence. You can almost hear her rolling her eyes as she plainly tells him, “Your Wi-Fi sucks. I need to turn it off.” As strings soar over a dance rhythm, Nash speaks of the joys of shaking off the burdens of a lover and enjoying her own reflection in the mirror again. The album’s best hook is the plaintive violin line of “Abandoned,” where Nash reaches into a higher, hazy range, recalling the strangely suspended melancholy of early Sarah McLaughlin.
But as the album progresses, Nash grows from heartbreak to love. Over the delicate pizzicato of “Space Odyssey 2001,” she convinces herself of her partner’s devotion to her: “I took you to the underground wrestling club/ Creepy and muscular and bloody… It’s obvious you’re in love with me.” There’s a whimsy to the clanging coconut percussion of “Horsie,” and a school choir vibe to the sneer of “My Bile.” It’s fun, even if the melodies sometimes feel a little thin and fleeting.
Nash was widely mocked for her debut album’s references to mundane everyday routines (particularly a line about flossing), but it’s good to see her sticking to her guns: after all, aren’t we all prone to thinking about life’s bigger questions while doing household chores?
The album finds Nash tidying up her bedroom (“Horsie”), stuck in hospital (the strummed “Ray”) and “washing her hair in the shower” (the lilting final ditty “Vampyre”). By the end, Nash sounds like she’s sitting next to you on a London bus. “Sometimes you just gotta jump and run/And blast the demons of your past into the sun,” she sings on a chorus that will have festival crowds swaying and singing along this summer. Through it all, Nash remains our Boudica next to her: fierce, funny and friendly.
