At one end of the pop spectrum, female artists go to ever-greater extremes of nudity, provocation and outlandish costumery to shock or dazzle their way to attention. At the other, acts chasing the Dido dollar court the bland, innocuous and inoffensive as though trying to become sonically invisible. To this latter set welcome Shura, AKA Aleksandra Denton, who appears to be trying to counteract a colourful and fascinating backstory – born in Moscow, a stint playing for Manchester City Women, work experience in the Amazon rainforest, 10m YouTube views of last year’s debut single, Touch – by making the beigest summation of the decade-long 80s revival imaginable. Casting her misty, amorphous vocals over drum-pad beats, funk bass and twinkling Chris de Burgh synths stinking of dry ice and car wax, she sounds like she’s holding a seance to contact Alannah Myles, Peter Cetera or It Must Have Been Love by Roxette.
Live, at least, she has the wherewithal to turn it up quite loud, which helps opener Figure Stuff Out summon enough spirit to resemble a ghost-in-the-machine La Roux or someone having a flashback dream sequence in the middle of a John Hughes party scene. Unfortunately the likes of Kids ’n’ Stuff and lovelorn new single 2Shy quickly descend into that soupy, sleep-inducing shimmer of synth that links Haim to Tango in the Night-era Fleetwood Mac and leaves no space for solidity or substance. No amount of gritty references to “walking home on the Uxbridge road”, smoking too much and getting “pissed off” when a boyfriend gets her name wrong can offset the glossy LA vibe of this gigantic soggy marshmallow of sound.
For “a bit of fun” she covers Fine Young Cannibals’ She Drives Me Crazy, giving it the feel of a temazepamed Madonna, and enlivens proceedings with reverb-and-raygun wig-outs on Just Once and White Light. But it’s too little, too lame. Pass our Karate Kid pyjamas and wake us up if she ever covers Time After Time.
