Less Trouble

Album ∙ Pop ∙ 2025

Shekhinah

In 2021, Shekhinah made a sharp pivot from the dreamy, optimistic soul pop that had defined her output up until that point. That was Trouble in Paradise, a 12-track project filled with songs about the gloomy spectacle of grief, the crippling anxiety brought on by insecurities, and the shifting landscape of her romantic life. The Durban singer is as inspired on her third album, Less Trouble, finding riveting new ways to ruminate on matters of the heart. Arriving four years after Trouble in Paradise, Less Trouble is similarly intimate and rich with details about the inner workings of Shekhinah’s emotions. Still, as the album title suggests, she’s low on bandwidth for emotional landmines and the inconveniences they produce.

Across Less Trouble, Shekhinah transforms her innermost thoughts on romance and attraction into sharp commentaries on modern dating dynamics while reinforcing her desire for clarity and non-toxic love. On the soulful opener, “Break up Season,” she’s keen to assert her needs and save herself from the looming specter of heartbreak: “Trouble in your eyes/Every single time, all we do is fight/I’m getting really tired/I can’t shake this feeling, it’s break up season,” she sings. If the album primarily deals in the currency of heartbreak and letting go of self-serving desires, Less Trouble is also colorful and melodic at turns, Shekhinah looping influence from pop, dance, and Afrobeats into her work to inject a vitality that signals a shift from being overtly moored by worries to living life on her terms.