Shura - I Got Too Sad For My Friends

Five years after her critically acclaimed album ‘forevher’, Shura is back with her highly anticipated third studio album ‘I Got Too Sad For My Friends’. A pastoral blend of chamber pop, sixties folk and campfire Americana, it builds Shura’s introspective songwriting out into a vast landscape – more tranquil than the soulful bounce of ‘forevher’, and more rustic than the brooding synth-pop of her 2016 debut ‘Nothing’s Real’.

That landscape is both sonically comforting and representative of her headspace during the writing process, which was one of sadness and isolation. The itinerant emotional state is mirrored in the artwork, which sees Shura perched on a Welsh mountainside in a baggy jumper, ripped jeans, Converse, and cobbled-together armour that covers  rverything except her vital organs – part Kurt Cobain, part Leonardo DiCaprio in Romeo + Juliet. The image references the French novella The Little Prince, which follows a young boy who sets out to explore other planets to cure his loneliness.

Though it’s an album exploring themes of depression and loneliness, ‘I Got Too Sad For My Friends’ is far from dejected it retains Shura’s usual crystalline sound and precision while introducing a different kind of warmth and earthiness.