It might have taken a while to get here, but it was worth waiting for.
'Album' of 'the week'
Label: Polydor Released: July 8th 2016 Rating: ★★★★
It's been a few years since Shura made her big mark with 'Touch', which to date has racked up over 26 million Youtube views. It set tongues wagging back then: when would there be more? When would there be an album? Well, she took a step back, did the work, and now we the world has an answer in the form of 'Nothing's Real'.
Well-versed 'Touch' and '2Shy' make the cut for her full length debut, a dreamlike haze of a pop album that takes you through the inner tracks of her mind, with relationships and love taking the fore.
'What's It Gonna Be' bounces sweetly in a tale of confusion over feelings, where 'Kidz & Stuff' cuts to the core of a break-up story, the pain that comes with picturing one life with someone and it not going that way. Title-track 'Nothing's Real' side-steps these themes with a funk-edge tackles experiences with panic attacks, the feeling that you'll die versus being told that you're a-okay and how it doesn't match up. Some tracks can be fuzzy to separate the further you delve in, but all tread that line of being delightfully catchy and easy-listening all at once.
"No, I'm no child but I don't feel grown up," Shura muses on 'What Happened To Us', taking the relatable and wrapping it up in a hazy package, so free flowing, but with lyrics that hook your own memories.
It might have taken a year or two to get the answer once she made that first mark, but it's one that was worth waiting for. Heather McDaid
Chess Club Records’ latest signee Pixey is among a long list of hugely talented artists, and she herself is certainly not one to let that reputation down.
