New York – Nadine Shah is pretty much doing a PJ Harvey impression. There’s no way to avoid mentioning it; her music is so specifically influenced by Polly Jean Harvey’s mid-90s body of work that it almost should be evaluated as an alternate-universe continuation of what Harvey could have done if she had stayed in the realm of alternative rock and not started playing autoharp and experimenting with recording live in front of a studio audience. Since PJ Harvey doesn’t write songs like “Down By the Water” or “Dress ” anymore, there’s room in the market for deconstructionist rock songs that capture that blend of menace and fiery sexuality and tension. Nadine Shah fills that niche. Her new album Fast Food is a proper sequel to Harvey’s To Bring You My Love, twenty years later.

Nowhere is Shah’s PJ Harvey inheritance more pronounced than on Fast Food’s first single and best song, “Fool.” The razor-sharp guitar sound, simplified riff, desert highway percussion, low pulsing bass, and thwarted catharsis are all taken straight from To Bring You My Love. This could be the B-side to “Down By the Water”; it’s practically a rewrite of that Harvey classic. There’s even a lyrical reference to Harvey’s ex-boyfriend Nick Cave. But it works because of Shah’s low, ice-veined voice and restrained guitar playing. She has a vibrato sort of like another ‘90s feminist rock icon, Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker. The way “Fool” threatens to burst into an angry anthem but never does shows an incredible degree of control. It’s one thing to punch a hole in the wall; it’s another, more chilling thing to fix someone with an unblinking, withering stare.

Nadine Shah is less explosive than PJ Harvey. Where Harvey would let her emotions take over, Shah mostly remains quiet and controlled. Her songs simmer rather than boil. The arrangements are sparse. Drum fills are rare, if they happen at all. There’s a lot of space in the recording. The instruments all work together, but they all stand alone in the mix, easy to pick out individually. The songs move linearly along one chord progression or riff. Nothing extraneous is added. It’s all restraint.

Where does Nadine Shah’s remarkable restraint come from? She’s English, from the village of Whitburn, South Tyneside (her Northern accent comes out on “Nothing Else To Do,” a meditative track where the only lyric is “and there was nothing else to do but fall in love” and she stacks many layers of gorgeous self-harmonies on top of each other). She is of Norwegian and Pakistani descent. I think the Norwegian is relevant; Scandinavians tend to be emotionally austere. It’s buried deep, withheld. Maybe Nadine Shah’s next album will be her Plastic Ono Band, where she screams it all out. In PJ Harvey terms, that would be her Rid Of Me (also, it feels relevant to mention that PJ Harvey is from a small town in the south of England, so Nadine Shah isn’t totally imitating her).

Fast Food is available via Apollo Records (in the U.S.). Nadine Shah will be touring the U.K. and Europe this spring.

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Liam Mathews

Liam grew up in Rosendale, NY, a little town in the Hudson Valley. Now he lives in Brooklyn. He has a degree in nonfiction writing from The New School. He mostly writes about music, comedy, and style, but he can write about a lot of things. He's written for Playboy, Fast Company, Nerve, and a lot of other places. He's real good at Twitter.

Latest posts by Liam Mathews (see all)

• Nadine Shah In PJ Harvey’s Shadow; Not a Bad Thing - April 3, 2015
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