No Na – ‘Island Girl’ review: an album of two halves that points towards girl group greatness
When NME first spoke to Indonesian girl group No Na earlier this year, the four members – Baila, Christy, Esther and Shaz – were quick to agree on two things: their love for R&B and their desire to bring their culture to the world. Debut album ‘Island Girl’ is their attempt to do both at once, weaving Indonesian heritage and the sounds they grew up on into a glossy mix of pop and R&B. These elements often come together in beautiful harmony, even if the album can sometimes feel like two halves of a whole.
The first half leans into the quartet’s Indonesian culture, with songs that are brimming with style and personality. Party-starter ‘Honk!’ and its call to “get on the angkot” will get you on your feet in no time, while the metallic clanging of the traditional ceng-ceng instrument on high-energy single ‘Work’ is instantly catchy. But even when they aren’t as outright with their background, sometimes a song’s breezy, island vibe – such as the laid-back album highlight ‘Seafood Diet’ – is enough to bring their identity to the forefront.
The back half, meanwhile, is mostly a slate of solid ’80s-influenced pop and R&B tracks. The best of the bunch here is ‘Durian’, a well-crafted piece of dance-pop that can trace its lineage straight to Whitney Houston’s ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)’, with standout vocals from Esther and Baila. But don’t sleep on ‘Dizzy’ or ‘Chaser’ either, both upbeat bops that are playlist-worthy in their own right. Fact is, there is very little filler here – No Na know how to craft a good pop song, even if some of the later tracks don’t have the same charm as those in the first half.
When their culture and other musical influences blend together, it brings forth some of the album’s best songs. Title track ‘Island Girl’ is a bittersweet song about first loves, with a synth-pop groove and earworm of a chorus about “chilling at the beach” (or “santai di pantai”, as they sing in Bahasa Indonesia) that soon transitions into a slower, more forlorn ballad sound. There’s also ‘Party In The +62’, where No Na dive into new jack swing with cheeky lyrics (“Better learn my language if you wanna talk to me… life is better with the island girls”).
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While the musical divide on ‘Island Girl’ is fairly clear to see, there’s enough connecting tissue to make it work as an album. Smart tracklisting does some heavy lifting as well – the quiet storm-inspired ‘Smooth’ appears early on to prime listeners for the record’s ’80s influences, while having the dancier ‘Honk!’ make way for the similarly high-energy ‘Dizzy’ helps things segue nicely into the second half. But really, we’re quibbling in the margins here – there’s nary a bad song on ‘Island Girl’, and its best moments point towards a group that’s able to make pop exciting in their own unique way.
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