Kate Nash can make a bad relationship sound both banal and completely unbearable. Foundations caught that in 2007: the grubby detail that stays with you after the argument. On 9 Sad Symphonies, the surroundings have become more elaborate. Strings and choral arrangements join a writer who still has little interest in making disappointment sound dignified.
Released in June 2024, the album marked her move to Kill Rock Stars after twelve years of independence. Her musical-theatre work informs the orchestration. It is a considerable change from the piano-pop introduction of Made of Bricks, while leaving Nash free to write about the everyday disappointments that first made her distinctive.
The Skinny’s Lucy Fitzgerald heard a tension between the record’s bleak subjects and its sweet musical setting. She found the contrast overdone in places, while praising the climb out of depression in Ray and the humour of the closing Vampyre. Her description of Wasteman’s garage beat also points to an album willing to give an unpleasant person a brisk dismissal.
Millions of Heartbeats, Abandoned and These Feelings announce their subjects without much disguise. The arrangement around a song becomes particularly important when its language is that direct. Fitzgerald’s reservations about the sweetness are useful here: orchestration can give a plain admission scale, but it can also make an ugly mood too comfortable.
Nash’s Paradise Theatre date comes with years of independent work between Foundations and this record. Ray’s depression, Vampyre’s humour and Wasteman’s dismissal give those elaborate arrangements different jobs. The question is whether each setting leaves room for the particular grievance. Nash’s bluntness is too valuable to lose under a tasteful string section.