Kim Deal – Nobody Loves You More – Album Review
by Killian Laher

A couple of surprising things about Kim Deal. She is now 63 years old and this is her first solo album, well the first album released under her own name.  It’s a bit of a mixed bag.  It opens with the breezy-sounding title track, with strings and a bossanova beat, then 90 seconds in a big old-school brass band comes in to join in the fun!  Recent single Coast also has copious use of brass and its melody is a ringer for Blondie’s Sunday Girl.  The most upbeat thing here is the sprightly dance track Crystal Breath, it’s hard to stay still to its infectious beat!

Deal has dusted off the muted folksong of 10 years ago Are You Mine and updated it, adding steel guitar and strings to make the track sound quite lovely.  For those who might miss the Breeders, sister Kelley Deal and Jim McPherson are involved in some tracks on the album.  Disobedience sounds just as rocking as anything off previous Breeders albums, as does the relatively intense Big Ben Beat with its thrilling stops and starts, while you could imagine the band trying their hand at the slow grind of Come Running.

Elsewhere Wish I Was, originally a sweet-sounding instrumental has become a chilled-out ballad, the vocal line Deal added really lifts the song.  The album finishes with another Breeders-esque track, A Good Time Pushed which rocks out in a relaxed manner, you don’t doubt it when Kim Deal sings “We’re having a good time”.

So quite a mixed bag, but the strongest songs are the ones closest to Breeders-style material.  Still, this won’t disappoint anyone who enjoys her band.

Coast