Shura 'forevher' Album Cover
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Shura forevher Secretly Canadian

15.08.19

Russian-British singer Shura’s music lives in her head, and forevher explores new frontiers of her cautious songwriting. Her 2016 debut Nothing’s Real revealed a rich interiority under the 80s synths, examining shared moments of insecurity, young adulthood and the relationship between the two. Shura’s sophomore album sways towards a newfound sensuality with a classic R&B twist.

The album is more aesthetically cohesive than her previous works. Whereas her debut leaned on catchy hooks to gloss over stylistic discrepancies, forevher finds a comfortable groove in electropop with a shoegaze veneer. Shura made a name for herself with open-ended questions about what we can’t, won’t or don’t say, but her latest release feels more like a full stop than a question mark. 

On flyin’, for example, she declares her love for someone over an off-kilter Bennie-and-the-Jets keyboard line with a confidence that was absent in her previous work. The fragility of her voice is replaced with stylised turns and slaps as she takes on many identities over the course of the album’s 11 tracks. The songwriting is a bit more complex as well: control churns along the backbeat like an Anita Baker B-side, and Shura’s voice sighs over the chorus on side effects with the kind of dispassionate disinterest that indie’s best boys would die for. forevher is smart, thoughtful and an exciting follow-up from one of left-field pop’s most interesting introverts.