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
