Nina Nesbitt Live [Review]

At around 9 pm on Tuesday 15th August, the lights dim in The Camden Assembly, and the room fills with smokey blue ambience. To loud cheers from the 100-and-something people in the audience, the Edinburgh songstress Nina Nesbitt excitedly walks onto the stage to begin a forty-five minute showcase of both plummeting bass and peppy acoustic anthems.

Nina opened with the premier of a new song, which seemed to dictate the pattern many of her other songs will take on the new album - set to be released later this year. Empire, especially, points to directions of rumbling bass, and the exploration of more pop-rock notions. This is compared to the seemingly more simplistic, but tender and often gorgeously raw, tracklist of 2014's freshman album Peroxide. The performance of her teenage-year tracks (Stay Out, The Apple Tree, Noserings and Shoestrings) provided little gaps between the new ones, proving that, for her devoted fans, they're as timeless as ever. 

It seems Nina is growing - both musically and in person - with her fan base. Peroxide is a pretty album, in that the songs tackle both relationships and experiencing growing up, together with charming acoustic backing tracks. This time the songs are stronger both in terms of lyrical content but also with how punchy they are instrumentally; Empire deliberates following crazy-seeming dreams and Nina finding her place in the industry; Best You Had is a very real, very empathetic stream of consciousness, discussing a feeling of vulnerability after an ex has moved on. Her latest single - The Moments I'm Missing - is particularly apt for those who aligned with 18 Candles on Peroxide, as it talks through the nostalgia of the younger years she wished away. Nina closed with Somebody Special, which seems to extract the best parts of her previous, more bubbly tracks in its sing-a-long portion, while still in-keeping with the overall heavier take on her genre with the bass. Its clever and I like it a lot. 

Despite breaking into a different kind of persona, Nina still remains to be as enthusiastic about her performing and her music as she was in years gone by. She was genuinely delighted to be there, thrilled to share new music to fans she was amazed attended a gig that sold out in five minutes. She appreciated everyone there, and was desperate to meet everyone afterwards. I think people like her - who chop and change their styles from time to time, who are so devoted and passionate about their craft, are pretty much brilliant at each newly-explored field - deserve a lot more recognition. 

From, 

Eleanor