Track Reviews // Shura – Religion (you can put your hands on me)


2nd Single from upcoming album Forevher (Secretly Canadian, 16th August 2019)

Londoner Shura has announced her 1st album with Secretly Canadian with the Prince-kissed disco and sacrilegious shuffle of Religion (you can put your hands on me) which curves and corners in all the right places.

The interplay of scorching guitar licks and icy synths, two stepping in and out of the limelight in turn, recalls the shimmery naughties; when the 1000 mile stare of latent Britpop in the indie eyes of Foals, Friendly Fires et al was pulled by glances of Curtis Mayfield and Bobby Womack.

Like that serendipitous cross-pollination, which still rattles the floors of indie nights up and down the UK, Shura blends her cultivated awkwardness with the kind of joyful abandonment only hairbrush microphones routinely experience up close. Her voice goes from mellow yearning to falsetto breathiness – simultaneously at one with the noise and entirely devoted to the listener’s ears, like whispered flirting during a slow jam.

Aided by Joel Pott, the production lets each style, influence and element stand as a new texture on the canvas swerving the flatness of Shura’s debut. As her voice breaches new intimacy in this mix the lyrics talk of forging a path through the torture of desire from a distance to a deeper closeness with her girlfriend.

Cast in religious imagery that highlights the notion of repression or control in an ideology ostensibly of love, the lyrics are as jarringly affective as Shura’s unlikely casting as a neo-soul queen. It’s bursting with the kind of post-pop cynicism and irony that can be found all over Secretly Canadian’s roster but Shura’s undeniable accessibility, flair and nostalgia set up a potential winner when Forevher drops on 16/08.

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