Album reviews: Nilüfer Yanya – Miss Universe and Lucy Rose – No Words Left

Nilüfer Yanya – Miss Universe

★★★★☆

Nilüfer Yanya isn’t down with the “wellness” industry. On her debut album, Miss Universe, the singer-songwriter makes this perfectly clear, tearing into all those “improve yourself” schemes littered across social media and parcelling up that angst as cerebral, skewed alt-rock.

The record is loosely conceptual insomuch as it’s punctuated with mock adverts for “WWAY HEALTH, our 24/7 care programme”. But don’t be put off: Miss Universe is a brilliant collection of songs, an expansive melange of indie, jazz, pop and trip-hop that flits between a lo-fi sparseness and something The Strokes would play. Yanya – who is of Turkish-Irish-Bajan heritage – grew up in London on a mix of Pixies, Nina Simone, The Libertines and Amy Winehouse, and this unlikely combination is certainly reflected in the sound.

“In Your Head”, in which the 24-year-old sings “I’ve hit rock bottom” in her velvety voice over thundering drums and scuzzy guitar, is an abrasive grunge-banger about a failing relationship. Synths and saxophone play their part on the smoother, more soulful “Paradise” and “Baby Blu”. Listen to the driving groove of “Heat Rises”, meanwhile, and you’ll be instantly reminded of Kelis and Andre 3000’s “Millionaire”. That said, Yanya is very much her own artist: original and bold. There’s been a lot of hype surrounding her since she made it on to BBC’s Sound of 2018 list. Miss Universe justifies it. Patrick Smith

Lucy Rose – No Words Left

★★★★☆

Lucy Rose’s fourth studio album was written, the English singer-songwriter says, during one of the hardest times of her life. However beautiful her dulcet tones might make it sound, it’s an album ridden with conflict – between autonomy and responsibility, and between love and hate. Not for a partner, but for the city she inhabits.

Rose – who found fame in the UK’s indie-folk scene as an unofficial member of Bombay Bicycle Club in 2010, only to walk away amid the band’s growing hype – is darkly compelling on No Words Left. Assisted by producer Tim Bidwell, who worked on Rose’s last record Something’s Changing, she sounds braver than she ever has before. There are moments that recall her Communion labelmate Ben Howard, on his latest album, Noonday Dream, and others that nod to the quiet stoicism of Joni Mitchell and Neil Young.

There is sorrow to be found in the jazz-influenced minor chords of “Solo(w)”, and the stark electric guitar on “The Confines of this World”, which turns Rose’s gaze towards London’s beautiful, claustrophobic streets. “Save Me From Your Kindness” explores the human tendency to isolate ourselves when we are at our loneliest.

Elsewhere, on “No Words Left Pt 1”, her piercing cries are layered over sprawling instrumentation, before “Treat Me Like a Woman” offers a subtle yet fierce condemnation of the misogyny she has experienced throughout her career.

For someone who claims she has no words left, she manages to say rather a lot. Roisin O’Connor