Fiona Amaka’s new single, “Cowards and Shadows,” doesn’t kick down the door; it slips the lock and vanishes into the night, leaving the chain on. There’s a particular London cool to this departure, a swagger in its disappearing act. The track’s lauded Bowie-esque posture is immediately apparent, thanks in no small part to Andy Zanini’s sharp, stalking guitar work. It’s less a gentle fade and more of a strut into nothingness.
The whole thing made me think, oddly, of those marble statues whose features have been worn smooth by centuries of acidic rain. The form is there, but the identity is blurred, eroded by slow, persistent exposure. This is the sound of someone choosing that erosion, actively dissolving a connection—not just in romance, but in the corporate ghosting of a job application—as a form of self-preservation. It’s the moment you stop maintaining the facade and give yourself permission to become indistinct, a shadow.
Amaka’s soulful, blues-inflected vocal, however, fights against this vanishing. It’s the paradox that anchors the song. While the lyrics map out a retreat into ambiguity, the music itself possesses a defiant, solid spine. It’s the sound of a person becoming a phantom, but doing so with immense, deliberate force. This isn’t weakness; it’s a calculated withdrawal from the front lines of a battle that can’t be won.
The song poses no judgment on this modern art of the fade-out. It simply builds the room where the decision is made, lets you feel the chill. It leaves you with the unsettling question: when you leave only a shadow, what exactly does it haunt?
