Nina Nesbitt enters Americana waters with Mountain Music

Having risen to fame at a very young age, her candid pop has earned the warm reception of stars such as Taylor Swift and found critical and chart acclaim with second studio album The Sun Will Come Up, The Seasons Will Change - focusing more on R&B-infused pop - while debut Peroxide was singled out for a guitar-based, earnest sound.

With Mountain Music it feels like Nesbitt has divorced herself from trying to fit herself where others want her to be and in letting it all go, has found something better. A somewhat shaky, self-aware sense of peace pervades this firmly folk album, and it could have ended up feeling a bit hollow - for example, the small-town love concept of “I’m Coming Home” is a bit cliche and well-trodden, yet the Springsteen-esque track builds to be one of the highlights of this record - but it is clear Nesbitt has something sincere to say, made all the more interesting by her commitment to letting her Scottish roots shine in an album inspired by an Americana sound. This album is, after all, the first release of her own boutique label – titled Apple Tree Records, after one of her earliest songs – and it feels like alongside an accomplished, more mature version of a sound she has always toyed with, her lyrics are cathartic and feel largely unfiltered. If you loved “Last December” from Nesbitt, you’ll love this body of work; there is a similar, almost uncomfortable look at her feelings that, although confessional, tracks broad themes around regret, sadness and, sometimes, being your own worst enemy.

There is also an obvious joy in the creative process that you can physically feel; Nesbitt was propelled almost feverishly by a 72-hour recording stint in a cabin in Devon and, although that results in some songs like “Painkiller” feeling a bit one note, for the most part the tracks on this album are cohesive, strong and full of the folk traditions she wanted on the album. Nature finishes throughout with bubbling brooks and mountain air travelling from one song to the next giving intention to this body of work, encouraging it to be listened to in its entirety – preferably alone by a loch. Though, if you’re going to listen to one song, let it be the ballad closer “Parachute” where Nesbitt feels like ‘a shape that’s emerging’ for everyone else but this one person. More blunt and harsher on herself than her self-confessional peers (“Open like a passport / Shut you out like border control” from opener “Pages”, for example), Parachute stands out amongst the track list as one that will resonate with any fellow introverts. Mountain Music may not fit what’s popular right now – it is only really “Anger” that strays close to the folk-pop movement having a moment with Noah Kahan, while other standout tracks “Mansion” and “Treachery” are meandering and not easily captured by any single buzzy line – but Nesbitt has realised there are better things than fitting in. Coming home, for one.