Review: Kim Deal – Nobody Loves You More

Kim Deal
Nobody Loves You More
4AD Ltd
Street: 10.22
Kim Deal = Kim Gordon + quiet PJ Harvey + The Nelson Riddle Orchestra

Kim Deal is an icon—a unique voice that still echoes from the ‘90s, decades after announcing that she was The Last Splash. The track “Cannonball” from that record is a cultural flashpoint that owns its place in time and still sounds modern and relevant today. 

Kim Deal has always been a chameleon, whether hiding behind pseudonyms like Mrs. John Murphy (early Pixies) and Tammy Ampersand (The Amps), or fronting her own band (The Breeders). Deal has always been a rock ’n’roll presence impossible to ignore. Now, her new solo album Nobody Loves You More is the first record to have her name on it. It’s a masterpiece. 

Bob Dylan, Lucinda Williams and Tom Waits aged gracefully into their own unique voices and Deal is doing the exact same thing. On Nobody Loves You More, Deal is a little cigarette voice torch-y, slightly mixed with a cool jazz bossa nova thing, and a new age Portishead vibe. It all works. Not just the surfy, bong hit, beer buzz feel of The Breeders, but a bright, vibrant, multi-instrumental sharpness added to the mix. It’s stunning—all this coming from an old school innovator who has reinvented herself with a new original sound.

“If this is all we are / I’m fucked!” Deal exclaims on the dynamic track “Disobedience.” Deal sings from a bit of introspection and existential dread. Having recently lost both her parents, her grief hangs over this record like a London fog: “Burning away / All energies fade / To memories gone / Like vibrations of a song / You played for me.” The track is a gut-punch heartbreaker knowing Deal’s mother’s long battle with Alzheimer’s disease and her experience watching a loved one slowly fade away. 

The track “Are You Mine?” can be seen as a gentle and quiet love song, but the reality is that the track is about a question from Deal’s mother during the late stages of her disease: “Are you mine? / Are you my baby?” It’s hard to have any heartstrings left after knowing the backstory of this song. It’s beautiful.

“Summerland” is a gorgeous, soft jazz stunner with Deal crooning: “I’m not even tired / This worlds for me / I waited all day / It was thrilling / I watched the sun drop / In the sea /It’s dazzling.” The track is produced by the late Steve Albini, who works the orchestral arrangements with a Sinatra-esque Nelson Riddle touch. Deal’s scratchy, ethereal vocals just float throughout the track like a butterfly. 

There are so many standouts on this record. The title track “Nobody Loves You More” is a spacious mind trip that slow roll kills like the best James Bond themes. “Crystal Breath” and “Big Ben Beat” are sludgy, grunge-fueled dance pop that sounds as if they were shoved through a Kid-A Radiohead filter. “We stare at the stupid stars / Our love is hard,” Deal sings on “Big Ben Beat.” “We are what we’re waiting for.”

“Part of me wants to / Follow you off this world / You quit the noise / Put it behind us / Drive a stake  / They’ll never find us,” Deal sings on the closer “A good time pushed.” “Part of me wants to / Push you off this world / I’m dull and you’re doomed / I want a big change / I want volume.” Deal ends the record with optimism: “We are / We’re having a good time / I’ll see you around.”

I can’t say enough about this record. It’s a perfect mid-career reinvention, yet it’s still able to cling to the beating heart of the past. Nobody Loves You More contains multitudes and Deal is able to effortlessly pull off and maximize all of them. “Gone with a flash / And a puff / I’m out of reach / It’s impossible / Give me poetry and magic / And I’ll come running,” Deal sings. “Spirit to circuit to ground / I was made to radiate out / Show me what’s not possible / And I’ll come running.”

Deal joins other female icons that have released memorable albums this year: Kim Gordon, PJ Harvey and Beth Gibbons. But with Nobody Loves You More, Deal rises above everything like a Phoenix out of familiar ashes. She has transcended beyond nostalgia into something strange, exciting and new.

Nobody Loves You More is my favorite record of 2024. –Russ Holsten

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