You can put the riot into the grrrl…

[Video][Website]
[5.78]
Anthony Easton: Sort of like the Slits, sort of like early Courtney; it’s lovely with the spitting sarcasm, and the accent is kind of amazing to hear in between that thicket of unruly guitars.
[7]
Alfred Soto: The slow churn of the guitars, tempo changes, and vocal sneer reassure fans of Lora Logic, the Slits, and other postpunk wünderkinder. Nash is the sort of performer who seeks gold stars. But I don’t remember her influences writing tunes this long.
[5]
Kat Stevens: There are always karaoke occasions (karaoccasions?) when after seven bottles of Asahi you think you’ve been roaring it out like Courtney or Ari Up but actually you sound like Kate does here, weak in the wrong places and not quite off key enough to be awesomely off-key. I recommend Kate goes away and smokes 20 Richmonds a day for a week then tries again. Or 7x Asahi, as a slightly less cancerous alternative.
[3]
Katherine St Asaph: Kate Nash goes to “Bollywood,” countering critics’ laffs with even more laffable music and lyrics that don’t have subtext so much as crayon scribbles on the page; loading up loaded signifiers like punk, riot grrrl and authenticity then hocking a loogie all over them, recording the process as a vocal track. (Irritatingly and undefendably, she’s done Phair’s Indian appropriation one worse with the bindi video.) In other words, Kate Nash is now fascinating, when she’s previously been the opposite. I’ll always defend that from artists, as long as they’re sincere. Turns out, she is.
[7]
Will Adams: Caught me red-handed. The person responsible for something as unfinished-sounding as “Do Wah Doo” and something as sanded-down as “Foundations” has no business releasing an aggressive, noisy alt-rock haze complete with tempo shifts, ugly yelps, and pitchy backing vocals. As opportunistic genre-hopping, this doesn’t work at all; it’s far too unpleasant to result in anything more than some positive blog buzz. But as a middle finger to critics, this is perfection, exactly what “Bollywood” could have been if it hadn’t decided to sound like shit. Finally, we can have our cake and eat it too.
[8]
Patrick St. Michel: For three minutes, Kate Nash hits on a ramshackle sound somewhere between Bikini Kill and Black Tambourine, and you want to high five for doing something pretty gutsy. The song lasts almost five, though, and as neat as this comes off at first, eventually her shouting grows a little tiring.
[6]
Edward Okulicz: Between this and a track here and there off her last album, it really does sound like Nash has a genuine love for punking up, and she’s not disgracing herself here; the song has a good chug. But her voice isn’t particularly suited to what’s going on — it lacks presence or intensity to carry the quiet bits, and lacks the power and venom to make her shouting enjoyable. What she’s trying to do requires far more chops and skill than she likely thought, and good on her for showing conviction, even if it mostly demonstrates how difficult pop-punk songs actually are to write and execute. Light years ahead of “Doo Wah Doo” though.
[5]
Jonathan Bogart: While in theory I certainly approve of someone with an already-solidified identity shaking it up by doing something else entirely, and I’m pretty much always interested in anyone trying to do early Courtney Love, the same things sandbag this Kate Nash as did the old Kate Nash: too much preciousness, too little editing.
[5]
Brad Shoup: Like an alt-rock Lil B track. At any moment she could start intoning “I’m Anna Waronker”.
[6]
Leave a Reply