Blood Red Shoes – Blood Red Shoes

Abrasive thrills are countered by a lack of risk taking...

With garage-punk songs about alienation and feral live shows fuelled by inter-band tensions, the idea of Brighton/London duo Blood Red Shoes self-producing their fourth album in a room in Kreuzberg, Berlin was an exciting one.

But despite drummer Steven Ansell sneering “keep me out of this uniform” in the thrillingly abrasive single ‘An Animal’ (video below), their scuzzy wall of sound established here soon becomes repetitive.

While the band’s previous long-player ‘In Time To Voices’ (2012, review) blended Americana and blues into their glossy noise-rock, meandering tracks on this eponymous set, like ‘Speech Coma’, lack similar sonic risks.

Intimate moments, however, like the haunting, heartbroken folk of ‘Tightwire’ show how primal this fourth studio collection could have been.

6/10

Words: James Evans

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