This is Steff Chura, a slim young woman wearing striking big glasses, from Detroit, Michigan, whose debut album Messes I've been returning to and enjoying over the past few months. It's made up of eleven well-crafted songs that drift from alternative to pop to New Wave and serve to foreground Chura and her distinctive voice and lyrics and make you realise why she chose to go out under her own name rather than a band one, even though she's backed by a group.
Generally the band arrangements are sparse and minimal. The important thing is Chura. She has an incredibly versatile and expressive voice that sometimes give you an uncanny remembrance of other singers. Sometimes she sounds a bit like Chrissie Hynde, sometimes a bit like Stevie Nicks, at others an awful lot like Kristin Hersh.
Her songs similarly navigate a path between very different emotions and tempos. Sometimes edgy, sometimes energetic, sometimes vulnerable, sometimes wistful. Always concise and crafted and persuading you ultimately of their need to exist. It's a very solid debut that I imagine myself coming back to many times more as the skies darken and we head towards Christmas!
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