Blood Red Shoes release “Ghost on Tape” on 14 January 2022

Dec 24

Dec 24 Blood Red Shoes release “Ghost on Tape” on 14 January 2022

Blood Red Shoes have just shared I Am Not You, the second single released from the forthcoming sixth studio album “Ghost on Tape” which is out on 14 January 2022. The new album is accompanied by a UK tour (details below).

Produced by Grammy nominated producer Tom Dalgety (Pixies, Royal Blood) and recorded at Echo Zoo Studios in March 2020, the new single is a song born from pure, unbridled, venomous rage. “The song takes industrial synths, and guitars distorted through the cheapest digital interfaces we could find and smashes them together into one harsh metallic slab of pure rage.” Explains Steven Ansell.

The huge sound of both I Am Not You and the first single Morbid Fascination, tease what’s to come from a project that has really brought the band closer together, both geographically and artistically. After years spent living on opposite sides of the Atlantic world events threw Ansell and Laura Mary Carter of Blood Red Shoes back together into what has become the most fruitful era of their 17 years together. “It’s been a loooong time since we both lived in the same city”, explains Steven. “I mean we actually wrote this album in LA at Laura’s place, then came to the UK to record it…and then everything went nuts”.

The new album “Ghosts on Tape” is a huge jump into new terrain for the band. Musically and emotionally their most mature work, it is a complex, imaginative, and very gothic development on their sound. Musically, it leaves almost no trace of their former selves.

“We’ve always been outsiders right from the very beginning” says Steven. “This album is really about us asserting ourselves as our own little island”, he adds. “We have made an entire career out of being told what we are “not”, of being rejected, of not fitting in, and this album is us deliberately pushing into all of our strangeness, emphasising all of the things that make us different”. Obsessed by true crime and murder podcasts, many songs on the record are told in character and explore the dark psyche of those at the pinnacle of outsiderdom: serial killers. The new album paints a picture of a dark and unsettling world. It is the sound of a unified and confident duo who know exactly who they are, even if the wider world doesn’t really get it. The sound of two people who have spent their entire adult lives making music together and who, more than ever, are finding new pathways for their creativity.

“Ultimately this album is an invitation”, explains Steven. “It’s us saying, this is our world, these are our darkest thoughts and feelings – our ghosts – caught on tape. You are welcome to join us. Come and embrace the strange”.

“Ghosts on Tape” is Blood Red Shoes sixth album, and their heaviest and most thought provoking work so far. It follows 2019’s excellent album “Get Tragic” and 2021’s EP “Ø”. I really enjoyed their last album, and highlight tracks worth a listen to are Eye to Eye and Bangsar.

The album has 10 tracks, broken into four sections by short instrumental Segue sections. First up we have Comply which eases us into the album with a slow melodic piano introduction supported by atmospheric synth tones supporting Steven’s distorted vocals, which rise and scream at you as the track builds. It has a NIN feel to it, with a similar level of Trent Reznor passion and anger. It builds to an almost chant like crescendo before suddenly vanishing, back to the simple piano, as the track fades away.

Next up we dive into Morbid Fascination. A heavy hitting track with outstanding vocals from Laura-Mary. The synth parts in this really remind me of 21st century Gary Numan tones – heavy and complex, and wouldn’t sound out of place on “Intruder” or “Savage”

The style changes with Murder Me, the guitar intro reminded me of something like The Slow Readers Club. Laura-May has a fantastic voice, but the use of an echo effect on this one in the verse sections really adds a new level of depth and mystery. The bass and drums as ever providing a pounding intense backdrop to the track. We head into Give Up with it’s intense pulsing drum and bass rhythm right from the start. It has an urgency to it, with Stevens distorted vocals almost shouted over the top.

We slow right down again with the introduction of Sucker with a delicate sparkly section, overtaken by a distorted guitar riff under Laura-Mary’s slow and sensual lyrics. Begging starts in a similar way with simple strummed guitar and continues the more mellow middle section of the album. An interesting track, and quite possibly my favourite on the album. It’s slow and feels dark, the vocals adding to that sense too. Very atmospheric….. very intense, with a wonderful abrupt, and sudden end, almost as if cut off in it’s prime.

Up next is the most recent single from the album, the excellent I Am Not You. The intensity rises to 100% again here, with heavy industrial synths and distorted guitars dominating. The chorus really is full of rage “I am nothing like you, No I’m nothing at all”. The intensity continues with Dig A Hole which is driven by the bass lines, but then switches it up for sections allowing the vocals to take centre stage, before diving back into the heavier industrial sections. I can’t wait to hear this one live.

The dark undertones continue with I Lose Whatever I Own with lyrics such as “What have you been waiting for, I’ve been lying on this bathroom floor for hours, and no body came”. Loud and lots of distortion effects, it really creates an incredible sonic experience.

Finally, after Segue 3 (What Have You Been Waiting For) we come to the final track Four Two Seven. A drum and handclap intro delivers us to Steven’s vocals, which are faded out a little so it sits within the rhythm. Again the lyrics are deep and dark, and paint a picture of being trapped “I’m scared to let go, the hurt’s so comfortable, the place that I am chained, is the place I’m doomed to stay”. I love the way that Blood Red Shoes can write wonderful slow industrial songs with deep meaningful lyrics. Tey show how sometimes screaming can be used so effectively, but then at times, such as here in Four Two Seven you can be equally powerful with soft, mellow vocals. I love how at the end of this one, the music fades away leaving the final moments to Steven, and the lyrics change to say “The place that I am chained, is the place I choose to stay”. A final moment of acceptance, either willing or force, that it is what it is. Incredibly powerful.

Four Two Seven ends abruptly. It makes you stop, and sit up and think for a moment, reflecting on what you’ve just experienced. “Ghosts on Tape” is an imaginative and complex album. It’s dark too, painting a picture of an unsettled world, illustrated by the use of deep synth tones, which is very industrial at times. It feels at times like NIN or Numan, but never a copy of, always different and clearly Blood Red Shoes. It feels full of rage, but has a level of maturity to it as well, it sounds like a band truly at one with what they are doing.

I really enjoyed 2019’s “Get Tragic” but this new album is on another level altogether. It’s so different, and that often upsets fans, but for me…. This departure from what we might have expected, works so brilliantly and should be a hit with old fans and new alike.

If this is the true Blood Red Shoes, then bring on more, and soon ! Brilliant, ordered a vinyl copy and I can’t wait for it to arrive. This is just my kind of thing and the execution is brilliant.

An outstanding album worthy of any vinyl collection and well worth our max score of 10 from LiveWire Music.

For more information, check out the band here: https://www.bloodredshoes.co.uk/