Blood Red Shoes Lights A Fire Like This

Six years ago, Steven Ansell (drums/vocals) and Laura-Mary Carter (guitar/vocals) didn't have anything better to do other than to get together for a jam. It was a good thing they did. Their Ginger Rogers meets Fred Astaire dance has turned into a fixture on the indie rock dial.

Primarily influenced by underground punk and rock music on this side of the pond, the guitar-drums only duo from Brighton, England, have progressed nicely since their Box of Secrets debut. Stateside, the introduction is all about Fire Like This, a barrage of stripped down sound.

They just recently left the U.S. (yesterday) and are headed back for a European tour. From a few photos shared from the North American tour, there seems to be some amusement over the Twinkie. Hey, Twinkies are amusing things. We know it. Next time, deep fry.

Blood Red Shoes are loud, explosive, and expressive with the right vocal hooks.

True to their word, neither Ansell nor Carter are predisposed to the mainstream. You can hear it in the music. And while the extended tour schedule has likely put their original plans to produce another EP on hold, that's fine. The ten tracks from Fire Like This are still fresh from V2.

It's Happening Now, Count Me Out, Heartsink, and One More Empty Chair are all standouts. It has to do with boiling the music down to produce a crisp sound and recording to analog tape with minimal overdubs. The result is something raw that comes across in Light It Up and Colours Fade.


For many people not in the U.S., some of the songs aren't so new. Most of it was crafted on the road and tour tested, which is becoming a common creative process for bands with an indie bent. You never know where inspiration might strike. And in one case, it came from David Lynch’s eerie Twin Peaks as they were crossing between continents.

From a single line, Ansell considered the dual nature of fire as a passionate and destructive force. The passion helps them creatively, but it also adds to their intensity. According to Ansell, it captures the essence of who they are. "We do fight a lot, but we’re also very intense about what we want to do creatively,” he said.

The duality includes how they see their future. They want to keep their cred as part of the alternative rock and underground punk rock scene. However, the allure of being the big band at the front of the pack lingers just out of sight. It will come.

Fire Like This By Blood Red Shoes Rips A 6.8 On The Liquid Hip Richter Scale.

When you want to hear something refreshingly inspired without being ripped off, Blood Red Shoes delivers. They do it well because rather than studying how other bands sound, they get to the business of studying why those bands did it.

Fire Like This by Blood Red Shoes is on iTunes. You can also find Fire Like This on Amazon as a CD, download, or on vinyl.