Baroque chamber rock, sonic shadows and the deep inheritance of feminine jealousy consume Liya Shapiro’s Another Woman –

Baroque chamber rock shadowed by Southern Gothic aesthetics became an affecting conduit for Liya Shapiro’s labyrinthine emotions in her latest single, Another Woman. The London-based singer-songwriter draws from her studies in art history, fashion and anthropology with a rare naturalness, and you can hear those disciplines breathing through the architecture of the track. The arcane sense of nostalgia within her chanteuse-esque vocals, as she glistens emerald with envy, gives the release more than just a temporal sense of resonance, alluding to the jealousy that’s travelled through the ancestry of femininity.

Written from the sting of seeing someone once loved move on, the song confronts the irrational ache of unrequited feeling with striking candour, while letting the emotional contradictions sit there in all their ugliness and vulnerability.

Like a lovechild of Nick Cave and PJ Harvey, Shapiro conjures sonic shadows in a way that leaves you under no illusion that they’re an extension of what lingers within. The cinematography of the juxtaposition between quiescent moments of melody and the artful discord of the rancorous chamber rock clashes of instrumentation reaches the definitive epitome of artful beguile.

Following the momentum of earlier releases and a sold-out Troubadour headline show, Shapiro feels fully in command of her strange, wounded, atmospheric world.

Another Woman is now available on all major streaming platforms, including Spotify. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast