There are a group of UK bands that can justifiably be described as ‘festival fodder’. They seem to appear on at least two or three line-ups a year, and can usually be found around the middle of a smaller stage bill. If you’ve really got nothing better to do, you might go and see them – but actually you know what? That £4 tray of tempura is looking good right now and I could do with a piss anyway.
Breeders are one example. The Guillemots are another. And so too are Brighton duo Blood Red Shoes.
This eponymously titled effort is their fourth studio album following ‘In Time To Voices’, released two years ago. It was recorded by the band themselves in Berlin without the intervention of producers or engineers, and singer/guitarist Laura-Mary Carter has spoken of the freedom of musical expression they felt working without a leash.
Their style is fairly unique in the respect that there’s no bassist – just drums and axe, with Carter and tub-thumber Steven Ansell sharing singing duties. Carter’s guitar sound is big, fuzzy and heavy, and with the duel vocals they don’t sound stripped bare as you might imagine, but loud and vibrant.
However, historically they been hampered by just not having the craftsmanship to write a decent album. The one or two stand-out tracks they do manage are tied down by twice as many bog-standard, middle of the road, plodding efforts which go nowhere and evoke little feeling.
It’s sad to say, but unfortunately ‘Blood Red Shoes’ is yet another example of this habit, and it’s even more disappointing because until the halfway stage, things aren’t looking too bad.
‘Welcome Home’ is the instrumental opening; a dark and dirty riff lurching into existence and setting things up very nicely. This is followed by the stomping, brash Britpop of ‘Everything All At Once’ and then the sex appeal and attitude of ‘An Animal’. This is a real gem, with an Arctic Monkeys-style groove to it and the killer line “I see that fucking look on your face, I’ll wipe it off one of these days, counting down the hours to my escape”.
‘Grey Smoke’ follows; an aptly titled number sounding like something straight out of Deep Purple’s locker, all moody and hedonistic. Afterwards comes ‘Far Away’, a lovely, floaty tune which sweeps along and would have made a great single.
Instead of this they choose ‘The Perfect Mess’, a totally dull track which is the first of a barren run making up most of the second half of the album. All of the confidence, bite and bile of before seems used up. As Carter sings in the pedestrian ‘Speech Coma’, “It’s like someone cut out my tongue”.
They briefly recapture their mojo for ‘Don’t Get Caught’, with a riff which bends like a racecar almost coming off a mountain road, but then our ears are again frustrated as the album fizzles out with the meandering ‘Tightwire’. Maybe, on this occasion, too much freedom was a bad thing for Blood Red Shoes.
If this was the first album it would be getting a better rating. But these guys have had plenty of time to find their sound and finally give their audiences something special. What they’ve produced instead is just more of the same old story, and their future looks likely to slip from middle-of-the-roster obscurity to absolute anonymity.
2/5
‘Blood Red Shoes’ by Blood Red Shoes is released on 3rd March on Jazz Life Records.
Blood Red Shoes links: Facebook|Twitter|Website
Words by Alex Phelan (@listen_to_alex)
