It’s been an formative few years for Denton, what with becoming a professional Twitch streamer after the pandemic halted her music plans and locked her in at home, but mostly due to the variety of mental health struggles that have inspired her newest record. Now on her third label with her third album I Got Too Sad For My Friends, Shura has doubled down on the tonality of forevher, but this time she’s dived headfirst into the inner workings.
The shift from Denton’s 2016 debut Nothing’s Real into 2019’s forevher was a move away from 80s synth and high-level production into a softer, more tailored sound that handled the album’s themes more delicately, and this move is seen again in her latest release. Production overall is softer than before, and while electronic sounds are utilised, they’re balanced out with classic instrumentation and arrangements – making for some great 80s slow jams like “Recognise” to be peppered along the track list. No more will we get the artist behind the instant classic “Touch”, but instead we get someone more focussed and surer (see what I did there?) of their sound.
But the record’s aim is also its downfall, and the pared-back nature that it strives for acts as a double-edged sword. Where previous efforts waxed and waned through emotional ups and downs, I Got Too Sad For My Friends doesn’t deliver much versatility. Each track rolls into the next, and while that is alike to the depression Denton dissects in the record, it doesn’t make for varied listening.
There’s plenty of reference to classic sad girl tropes on
the record like not getting out of bed, tears in the back of a car
(“Tokyo”), political fatigue (“America”), and pills and panic attacks
(“Bad Kid”), but where Denton shines is her connection to the important
yet personal parts of her life. She sings of troubled family
relationships on “Online” and a previous love on “Leonard Street”, each
accompanied with gorgeous arrangements and motifs. It makes the
on-the-nose writing of “I Wanna Be Loved By You” even more apparent, as
it feels a little forced among its fellow tracks.
“World’s Worst Girlfriend” is the standout as it nods to
her debut record while lyrically staying on theme – and it’s interesting
to hear the lyrical comparison from the previous focus of girls,
relationships, breakups and ‘you’ on this sound, into the
self-reflection and ‘me’ of it all. Denton is clearly learning to love
herself before she loves anyone else, and that maturity comes through
loud and clear. “Ringpull” similarly harkens back to her previous works,
giving the album a glimpse of upbeat sounds, and even her lyrics become
more hopeful – even if they stay rooted in the downtrodden theme (“So I
get up and make my bed / the skies so blue, but my head’s a mess.”)
I Got Too Sad For My Friends is a wonderfully made
piece of easy listening, it takes Shura away from the love-sick girl of
the 2010s and shows a woman now in her 30s who sees the world for what
it is. Yes it’s sad, and you can’t help but feel for Denton on the
record as it’s clear it’s been rough, but you also feel hope – hope that
the person, artist, and musician she becomes after all this finds the
happiness she deserves. And if this record is the sound of Shura working
through the hardest parts, then maybe the next one will be the sound of
her coming out the other side.
