Scottish singer-songwriter Nina Nesbitt unintentionally made it into millions of homes when her former boyfriend, Ed Sheeran, wrote a song about their relationship – Nina, on 2014’s X. But she herself has spent a decade on the verge, having narrowly missed the Top 20 with her 2013 single Stay Out and the Top 10 with her 2014 debut album Peroxide. Her third album, Älskar, takes her sharp, guitar-led songwriting further into electronic pop. Having started out writing about teenage romance, she is now 28 and singing the dreamy Teenage Chemistry, about feeling the same thrill in an adult relationship (“Like we’re still 18, hands all over me”). Maturity and lockdowns have brought introspection and songs about family – the truly lovely Dinner Table – loss and death, although she’s still capable of writing like a sassy teen on No Time (For My Life to Suck).
At its best, Älskar (meaning “love”) shows us a young woman navigating through society and the music business. Pressure Makes Diamonds kicks back at female stereotypes and insists “I’ll just keep on swimming through the patriarchal system”. Older Guys is a powerful and damning reflection on early relationships that took away her innocence. Colours of You – written with Adele collaborator Dan Wilson – is a more anodyne piano/strings ballad. If Älskar can occasionally feel identikit, there’s a refreshing honesty in its compromise between raw confessionals and acknowledging the pressure to “make it through the bullshit flying at me, write something catchy and turn it into money”.