The most jaw-dropping song on Nadine Shah’s fifth album, amid stiff competition, comes right at the end. French Exit, the term referring to the practice of leaving a party without telling anybody, is used here to refer to a suicide attempt the South Tyneside musician made in 2022. Over stark synth loops, she recalls the mundanity of the moment with blank eyes: “A quiet little way out/Nothing explicit/Nina to drown the noise out.”
In the four years since her last release, Shah has also been married and divorced, spent time in a rehab facility and taken care of her mother while she lost her life to cancer. It’s no wonder Filthy Underneath feels like it had no choice but to be her most personal, bleakest collection.
