Nadine Shah – Love Your Dum and Mad

With its gently tremulous textures and smoky intensity, Nadine Shah’s voice is a revelation on Love Your Dum and Mad, her first full-length album following a brace of acclaimed EPs. The title’s spoonerism is a red herring: across these eleven tracks, Shah selects and delivers her words with precision, affording every syllable space to register atop a crepuscular bed of despondent, predominantly piano-based arrangements.

From the propulsive and dramatic Runaway to the richly gothic Dreary Town (remarkably, the first song the Whitburn-born chanteuse ever wrote), Shah evidences her compositional flair time and time again - even if the singularly lugubrious tone can at times feel arduous. Thankfully, said weight is largely alleviated through moments of crisp beauty such as the brass swells of Used it All and the final refrain of closer Winter Reigns, the latter imparting a lingering air of fragility and finesse. All in all, pretty gucking food. [Chris Buckle]