Considering Blood Red Shoes spend three hundred days of the year on tour together, it’s a surprise they even have time to make an album. Let alone co-produce an album of such an impressive standard as this. Opening track and album title ‘In Time To Voices’ sees Laura-Mary Carter channelling her inner Alison Mosshart circa ‘Midnight Boom’. Her seductive tones enticing you, steadily building into a thunderous chorus, setting pulses racing.
Lead single ‘Cold’, which has been universally meet with critical acclaim does not disappoint. The machine gun double bass drum rumbles through, providing the platform for the beefed up riff. It seems hard to comprehend, that just two people can make a song with such a massive sound. Such is the passion and intensity that this song holds though it is made more than possible.
A recurring theme, which works brilliantly throughout this L.P is the duelling vocals, which feature on the majority of tracks. ‘Two Dead Minutes’ is a prime example, but in a less ferocious, more melancholic and gentle way. Steven Ansell has spoken of the bands intentions to be more three-dimensional sound and this showcases the diversity Blood Red Shoes have to offer.
‘Night Light’ has almost a Country and Western feel about it. To a certain extent it resembles Jonny Cash’s version of hurt ‘Hurt’ through its haunting piano and solitary acoustic guitar. It’s a very cinematic and evocative track, conjuring up various images of some America’s desolate highways, and never ending landscapes. You are not left to daydream for long though, as next track ‘Je Me Perds’ bulldozes through like a freight train. The opening riff propels the song into life at 100mph, accompanied by Ansell’s shrieking vocal and frantic drumming. Resulting in a riot of a track, which stays punching and kicking till the very end.
Unfortunately ‘Stop Kicking’ is a bit of a none event after the frenetic highs of the preceding track. You are left feeling a little disappointed by a track that feels like a bit of a stopgap, that just seems to go through the motions never really building into anything worthwhile.
This album does chop and change a fair amount, seeing multiple genres being used throughout, and that can sometimes result in an album becoming disjointed. However I don’t see that to be the case with ‘In Time To Voices’, everything seems to come together and work. I think that the band’s successful partnership with Mike Crossey (Arctic Monkeys/Foals/Tribes) has to be credited for this, delivering a finely crafted L.P. Blood Red Shoes don’t seem afraid to throw the rulebook out the window, and their bravery is rewarded with a solid album that offers everything from stripped back acoustic subtlety, to big guitar riffs and anthemic choruses. I think its safe to say that we are going to see a lot more of this band in the future, and I for one look forward to it.
Sion Jones
