Finally returning with album number three, BLOOD RED SHOES have been on an odd journey of late. Relatively vacant from the UK in recent times, the band are on a big promotional kick this year ahead of the release of ‘In Time To Voices’ and a Reading/Leeds main stage appearance. It’s probably fair to say that their future hinges quite heavily on how the album does, and the big question about ‘In Time To Voices’ is whether the appeal is broad enough to retain and obtain fans. Truthfully, the jury is out;
The band have significantly morphed from 2008’s indie-rock debut ‘Box Of Secrets’ through the darker and more thoughtful follow up ‘Fire Like This’, and album three sees them take a much more measured approach and continue down the road the last album was taking them on.
Arguably, ‘In Time To Voices’ contains the band’s best instrumental and arrangement work to date (as it should) – and you also have to sympathise that having such a limited membership will inevitably lead to a desire for pushing creative writing to the forefront – but that wasn’t really where the band’s greatest charm lied, and some of the tracks do sound a little “over thought”. Because of this, the album requires more effort to connect with than its predecessors, and for a band that been was so consistent with smash and grab pop tunes at first, there’s a risk that their existing audience may not connect so freely this time around.
That said, ‘In Time To Voices’ is the most accomplished album from the band to date, perfecting the vocal and instrumental relationship between Laura-Mary Carter and Steve Ansell, and keeps the band both relevant and interesting at the same time. It lacks the pace of the albums before it, but the dynamic and technical ability on songs like ‘The Silence And The Drones’ more than make up for it – there’s no questioning that this was the next step in the evolution of the band after ‘Fire Like This’.
Highlights on the album come from the upbeat, organ-twinged ‘Stop Kicking’, the juxtaposed punk of ‘Je Me Perds’ and the more conventional “BLOOD RED SHOES” sound of recent single ‘Cold’, with all three showing off different aspects of the band’s sound.
There’s certainly a few moments on the album that would have been better left on the chopping room floor, and whether fans of the original album will connect with the band further moving away from the sound of their debut (instrumentally at least) remains to be seen, but ‘In Time To Voices’ is a great showcase of one of the UK’s most interesting musical duos and there’s no doubt that BLOOD RED SHOES still have a uniquely captivating sound. A release without the accessibility of the two before it, but one that repays patience with fine rewards.
TOM AYLOTT