# Album Review: Blood Red Shoes – ‘Ghosts On Tape’

- Link: https://indierockcafe.com/2022/01/blood-red-shoes-ghosts-on-tape/
- Published: 2022-01-15T21:46:44-05:00
- Author: GuestBlogger

Blood red is the new black. Like a reconnaissance of caves, each darker than the
last, _Blood Red Shoes’_ discography is an ongoing incitation to fill already-black
voids with one’s own crepuscule. While the flow of 2019’s ‘Get Tragic’ bludgeoned
with garage rock energy, follow-up ‘Ghosts on Tape’ lives up to its title by channelling
the misery of a global pandemic.

The klaxon-like keyboards of ‘Morbid Fascination’ actually appear chirpy compared
to the bulk of ‘Ghosts on Tape’. While it may not encapsulate the album’s torn-apart
manifesto – more Satan’s cookbook – the song is an evident high for the duo; an 
insistence on unique, whilst shaping itself perfectly into today’s hallowed alt 
rock zeitgeist – alongside a few other bits and pieces, most notably ‘I Lose Whatever
I Own’, it’s _Muse_-like.

But the norm for Laura-Mary Carter and Steven Ansell – heavily persuaded by the 
cancelled plans and geographic separation spawned by the pandemic – is to play the
part of serial downers, shifting shape ever so slightly to fit a beast that bit 
more frightening. Blood Red Shoes are the vampiric folklore creatures of their craft,
spiked by the gloom of isolation, whilst sporadically renewing the garage energy
of ‘Get Tragic’ on cardio machines like ‘Give Up’.

Not even those energetic tunes could make ‘Ghosts on Tape’ appear extroverted, though
the album does flick through a little book of influences in a manner that teases
embrace. A few corners resemble _CHVRCHES_ if their synthesiser suffered from stage
fright, as much a part of the action, but hiding its face to contribute with _Frusciante_-
style subtlety; the “it’s not about me” approach of a _Pink Floyd_ concert. Save
for post-industrial meltdowns like ‘Sucker’, on which the keyboards breathe upwards
like melodic chimneys, this nuanced synth-wave is the duo’s principal creative stamp,
multiplying atmosphere when necessary, but as ‘Begging’ proves, such a feat may 
just as well be achieved with six-inch-deep guitar picking or double-focussed percussion
pulses.

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