Shura

Shura

Shura Denton has been around for a while: early reports are of a grungy-looking female from Manchester purveying a Smiths/Cocteau-style, guitar-based sound. Now the singer, of Russian parentage and apparently based in London, is on much more of an 80s pop tip. She looks a bit like 1984 Madonna in her press shots, and her latest track, Just Once (the follow-up to the also-excellent Touch), evokes slow-dance Madge as well as Cyndi Lauper in ballad mode (Time After Time). It’s breathy and melodic, with a quietly arresting lyric about the perils of simultaneous infatuation and inebriation.

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