Kate Nash’s Pop Is Elegant, Dark, and Triumphant

Her new album, “Yesterday Was Forever,” exudes raw energy.

Album Review

Kate Nash
Yesterday Was Forever
Girl Gang

Britain’s Kate Nash is a real live wire. Her enticing pop songs feature elegant melodies, ultra-catchy choruses and insistent vocals that mix poise and anxiety to striking effect, not unlike the best of Lily Allen (an early Nash supporter). Her excellent fourth outing, the fizzy Yesterday Was Forever, explores depression and volatile relationships with bracing directness. “Life in Pink” opens the album with the declaration, “I think about death all the time,” going on to say, “I wish I could take you to another time / When everything was cool and my mental health was fine.” On “Today” she calmly notes, “Maybe today when I go out it will feel different / And I won’t feel scared at all,” adding, “I don’t wanna always have to try.” However dark the sentiments, the raw energy Nash brings to her tales of struggle adds a triumphant undertone, suggesting everything will eventually turn out okay.

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