IT’S probably best not to mention “the difficult second album” to Nadine Shah – she’s heard it all before.

“As soon as I started making my second album that phrase was thrown around by everyone – even family members,” she says as Fast Food hits the shelves this week.

“A bit of encouragement wouldn’t go amiss!”

In fact the ten track album was a “joy to make”.

“I wanted the second album to be a lot more coherent than the first,” she says. “The first [2013’s Love Your Dum And Mad] was written over the course of a few years. By the time it came out it didn’t feel like a representation of where I was at the time.

“I wrote Fast Food in an intense short period of time, and the recording process was quite short.”

Love Your Dum And Mad was very political, touching on the untimely deaths of two of her friends and themes of mental illness.

“I felt with the first album I was making something really important that had to be said and discussed,” she says. “With Fast Food I’m writing about my own personal experiences, which is harder. It’s almost portraits of people I love or have loved. I’m getting to the age, in my late 20s where you get quite reflective. You can’t help looking at your past and thinking where things went wrong. You start wanting to settle down and find a partner.”

She feels she is now at an age where you are too old to do certain things, but too young for the next chapter.

“I’ve lost a lot of friends to yoga,” she says. “Everyone is starting to worry about their health and are working on their zen. They want to make sure they have long and healthy lives so they can settle down and have babies.”

Living, the closing track, is almost a letter to her best friend on daily life in the capital.

“The cost of London is so high,” she says. “But we’re getting to the point where young creative people have to live in the capital city which has never happened before – despite the fact it’s not conducive to creativity.”

The title track reflects on short-lived complicated relationships. Divided touches on having a lover in another city and the desire to move out of London, where she calls home now.

Her deep and powerful voice is still front and centre on Fast Food – having drawn comparisons to P J Harvey and Anna Calvi on her first album.

But the way she wrote the songs changed while she was on tour.

“I felt restricted by the piano,” she says of the instrument which drove Love Your Dum And Mad.

“It presented a physical obstacle between me and the audience.

“With the nature of being on the road I wrote a lot on the guitar. The live show decided the way the album was going to sound.”

She also enjoyed the spectacle of seeing her band rock out on stage.

“I got a kick out of seeing my band members having a great time playing,” she says.

One constant between the two albums is the contribution by producer Ben Hillier, who is now based in Brighton.

“I couldn’t get rid of the b******,” she laughs. “Once we made the first album, which took us bloody ages to make, he came and played drums with the band.

“He’s one of my best friends, and a real creative partner. I consider everything we make as a proper collaboration. The thought of working with somebody else never entered my mind.

“We’ll both be working together until one of us croaks...”

NADINE SHAH
The Haunt, Pool Valley, Brighton, Friday, April 10
Doors 7pm, tickets £10. Call 01273 606312