Nina Nesbitt – Peroxide
The first single to be taken from Nina Nesbitt’s Peroxide was Selfies – everyone’s mum’s favourite “modern” word. The problem with the 19-year-old Scot’s debut record, and indeed Selfies itself, is that it feels like she’s on the road to becoming everyone’s mum’s favourite “modern” singer-songwriter. There’s nothing exciting, visceral or pertinent to grab on to here. What we have instead is a brand of gentle, tolerable folk-pop that will undoubtedly provide Nesbitt with a platform to achieve commercial success.
Much of Peroxide attempts to cast Nesbitt as a feisty, snarky, witty teenager; a part in which she largely fails to convince. Mr C is perhaps the least effective attempt at Lily Allen-esque petulance: “I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re quite fit/ But I’m under no illusion you’re a dick.” Stay Out is the about the only track on which Nesbitt successfully attempts to critique the generation to which she and her audience belongs. The track is set a familiar land of bravado and awkwardness – the night out. “He’s got a Rolling Stones tee/ But he only knows one song” is one of numerous couplets about young guys purporting to be something bigger and more interesting than they are. “All these boys and girls are people looking for someone to be,” Nesbitt sings. It’s a shame, then, that the chorus of Stay Out is compromised by a meagre attempt at a catchy chorus.
Peroxide is at its best when it’s at its most delicate. When the over-produced folk-pop-rock sound is stripped away somewhat, we find her most affecting songs. Two Worlds Away feels a whole lot more real and vocally assured than most of what we hear on the record. Closer The Hardest Part is a genuinely moving ballad of a lost love; “Just please don’t love another like you loved me/ Time doesn’t heal, it just leaves me asking why.”
The way the music world moves these days, we’ll probably have forgotten about this record in a couple of years. Nina Nesbitt’s talent and backing will hopefully allow her to make a more resonant, pertinent and self-assured record in the future.
Mark Carr
Peroxide was released on 14th February 2014. For further information or to order visit Nina Nesbitt’s website here.
Watch the video for Stay Out here:
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