Kitchen Sink is the fourth studio album from the South Tyneside-based artist, following the critically acclaimed and Mercury-nominated album Holiday Destination. One of Nadine Shah’s most distinguishable qualities as an artist is her natural aptitude for dissecting societal constructs. This can be heard loud and clear on Kitchen Sink, as the record playfully ponders the idealistic expectations projected onto women. 

Shah’s mighty voice subverts the usually uncomfortable topic of getting older, whilst also at times jokingly magnifying the existential dread surrounding it. All the while, the record fizzles with the intricate instrumentation fundamental to Nadine Shah’s discography. When discussing Kitchen Sink with The Guardian, Shah maintains that getting older is “something women have to think about all the time, but you never hear songs about it”. 

Composed of eleven tracks, Kitchen Sink allows Nadine Shah to meditate her own dichotomistic desires, such as feeling simultaneously repelled from and inclined towards marriage and settling down, societal constructs that are still bound to modern femininity. On DillyDally, Shah rejects ideas of female-against-female comparison and women being age-shamed: “Stop the counting of years/Stop the wracking your mind/Stop your fuelling of fears/You’re divine”, delivering an empowering message to women everywhere. 

Along with its introspective and sometimes satirical lyricism, Kitchen Sink is a fusion of genres, rife with a deep, jazz-like instrumentation of guitars, horns, and drums. The album’s opening song Club Cougar epitomises this: a percussively charged, smokey anthem that plays on its marvellous extended instrumentals. 

Reminiscent of 1960’s grooves, Ukrainian Wine and Buckfast are jam-packed with riffy guitars and defiant percussion. In Trad, Shah undermines the dreaded ‘biological clock’ stigma, her expansive vocal ability at its finest as she booms the rhyming couplet: “Shave my legs’/Freeze my eggs” 

View this post on Instagram

Long overdue but worth the wait. Today at 00:01 my baby was birthed. Please welcome into the world my little bundle of joy.. Kitchen Sink! Link in bio

A post shared by Nadine Shah (@nadineshah) on Jun 26, 2020 at 2:00am PDT

Shah took to Instagram on 26th June to relay the news of her latest release to her 14,000 followers. In a short clip of Shah standing in her kitchen, the singer-songwriter captioned the video clip: “Long overdue but worth the wait. Today at 00:01, my baby was birthed. Please welcome into the world my little bundle of joy…Kitchen Sink!” The post gained an amazing reception from fans and saw over 3,000 likes.

With the coronavirus pandemic forcing the artist’s tour plans to grind to a halt, Nadine Shah’s next scheduled show is set to take place on the 28th May 2021, at the This Is Tomorrow festival in Newcastle Upon Tyne.

Kitchen Sink is out now. 

Tour Dates:

28/05/2021 – This Is Tomorrow Festival – Newcastle Upon Tyne – United Kingdom

Kitchen Sink Track Listing:

1. Club Cougar
2. Ladies for Babies (Goats for Love)
3. Buckfast
4.DillyDally
5. Trad
6. Kitchen Sink
7. Kite
8.Ukrainian Wine
9.Wasps Nest
10. Walk
11. Prayer Mat