On May 3, 1993, New Order released Republic, their long-awaited sixth studio album. A month later, it was joined in the stores by Souvlaki, the second long player from Reading shoegazers Slowdive. The British producer and DJ Nabihah Iqbal was a child at the time, but her debut album sits on a stylistic shelf between them. Weighing of the Heart is first full-length from Iqbal to not bear her former moniker, Throwing Shade, the modish alter ego that she inhabited from 2009 to mid-2017.
Iqbal has explained that the decision to do away with the Throwing Shade alias was driven by a desire to stand as a British-Asian artist making music. But the move also feels appropriate on an album where Iqbal rolls back the fashionable club production of her previous work in favor of a sound that is more personal and emotive. Gone are the bleeding-edge electronic beats and globe-trotting influences that Iqbal previously preferred on tracks like “hashtag IRL.” In a recent interview, Iqbal said she avoided listening to new music while working on this album, reflecting instead on the music of her teenage years. She mentions Joy Division and Bauhaus as influences as well as "Sowt ‘Leiko Kamam Bian Tara Lod Biaran’" by R & R Zangeshahi, the latter not so much as a sonic marker as for the emotional response it brings from the listener.
The inky hands of Joy Division’s later incarnation as New Order are all over Weighing of the Heart. Album highlight “Saw U Twice” is a hugely satisfying retread of the early New Order sound, when the band bolted on synths to add dashes of color to their Mancunian morosity. “Saw U Twice” sees sparse guitar lines meet melodic bass counterpoint, airy electronic washes and drums that vacillate between post-punk dungeon and New York disco, each perfectly weighed. This combination, repeated on the album’s best tracks, may not appear particularly original in late 2017, when New Order’s influence is evident in bands from LCD Soundsystem to The Killers. But Iqbal lifts her music into rather more original territory thanks to vocals that borrow from the chiffon singing style of shoegaze acts like Slowdive or The Telescopes, her fusion of two popular musical influences creating something greater than the sum of its parts.
It helps that Iqbal is a frequently fantastic songwriter. The spaces and separation inherent in the New Order sound mean that there is no room to hide your dirty musical laundry; every component must be finely tuned to work, both individually and as part of the whole. Iqbal pulls off this delicate balancing act with aplomb, packing the album with wonderful instrumental touches, from the chiming guitar intro to “Something More” to the luminescent bassline that lifts the midsection of “Eternal Passion” to the dramatic cymbal crashes on “Saw U Twice.” To this, she adds vocal lines that combine earworm melodies with a road-worn melancholy, transforming lyrics such as “Saw you on the train/Will I see you again?” (from “Saw U Twice”) into the kind of quotidian lament that is inherent in the most relatable pop music.
Iqbal’s lyrical skills are particularly prominent on “Zone 1 to 6000,” a song that takes the influence of English poets William Blake and Matthew Arnold into the drudgery and release of 21st-century London. The combination of Iqbal’s deadpan delivery, brilliantly evocative synth chords, and lines like, “We wander through each other's lives/Just like the river's constant flow” make the song a dead ringer for a 2017 “West End Girls.”
When this combination of hooky, relatable songwriting works, Weighing of the Heart delivers some of the finest, most viscerally satisfying electronic pop music of the year. At times, though, Iqbal seems to let her winning formula get away from her. “In Visions” feels like two entirely separate songs meeting up and not getting along, the vocal sitting on top of the musical bed like a misconstrued mix you wish the DJ would put out of its agony. “Eden Piece,” which opens the album, foregoes a proper vocal melody in favor of rather formless “oohs” and “aahs” and a wandering piano line. “Slowly,” meanwhile, relies almost entirely on the vocal line, supported only by mopey synth chords and the kind of off-putting, twiddling guitar that might adorn a Scorpions B side. It’s a drag, in all senses of the word.
Weighing of the Heart is not perfect, then, but most New Order albums also contain their fair share of imperfections and missteps (and somehow it makes us love them more). As Throwing Shade, Iqbal was already one of electronic music’s most engaging polymaths, thanks to a resumé that included everything from vocalist on SOPHIE’s “Lemonade” to a stint as a human rights lawyer. With Weighing of the Heart, Iqbal adds another couple of strings to her bow, emerging as a pop auteur and songwriter of impressive emotional heft.
