Snoh Aalegra Feels Nothing Burns Like The Cold

Snoh Aalegra keeps the intoxicating goodness coming in the shape of two single releases from the second of her proposed trilogy of Mini Albums, following part one of her critically acclaimed ‘Don’t Explain’ Mini Album released in the middle of 2016.

Awash with emotion, Feels, released towards the tail end of 2016, is a poignant mid-tempo melodic slice of Motown’ish Soul. The track treads the lyrically familiar path of realised longing, yet Snoh elevates this theme into something wondrous.

Displaying unashamed inflection and control in her vocals, when she intones “I never knew, all of these feels,” the intricate webbing of your spine connects to each and every hair raised by the undulating melody, and you’re engrossed in the impeccable musicianship that sweeps and harks back to a deeper more elegant time. This is a track that slides under the silky covers of desire, longing and yearning, culminating at 3mins and 48 seconds in you feeling spent.

The rich and expansively creative vein of the Swedish-Iranian singer appears to have entered, bleeds through her most recent release. Nothing Burns Like The Cold, is film noir given life. Electronic scratches and stabs, live seamlessly alongside sweeping orchestral movements and sees Snoh at her searching, vulnerable and captivating best, assisted on rap duties by Vince Staples.

Snoh’s vintage dalliance manages to perfectly capture the motif of the single, which could easily have been a 1960s Bond theme, without overpowering its 21st-century leanings. Where Feels was about emotion, Nothing Burns Like The Cold feels like a statement of intent.

From the beguiling cover art to the stripped avant-garde groove, everything about Snoh’s recent releases seems thought out and painstakingly executed. I for one applaud her efforts and are eager to see them realised live.