Blood Red Shoes @ Wedgewood Rooms, Portmouth, 08/04/2008

It's somewhat hard to believe that a duo so elegant as Laura-Mary and Steven can make such a decent racket.

Their bassless antics maye be simple, but as demonstrated by tonight's opening act, AN EMERGENCY, can difficult to pull off well. AE's twin guitar sound takes a whistlestop tour of American bedroom Indie Rock, taking in Sonic Youth, Les Savy Fav and everything in between. But while the lack of a four-string is just about hidden by the noise, their myspace recordings sound sparse and messy without the bass keeping it all together.

http://www.myspace.com/anemergencyxxx

Jack and George of THESE NEW PURITANS step up, neglecting to mention where their other two band members are or why they aren't here. Instead, either as an homage to tonight's headliners or that the left the other two at a Service Station on the M3, its just the brothers Barnett with George taking up the slack, negotiating the drum machine, sampler and playing bass. Whatever reason for them just being a twosome, their glitchy post-punk makes tons more sense without the full band backing it up. Despite rumours of lead singer Jack's arrogance, they play a tight set with few problems; "Numbers (AKA Numerology)" and "Elviss" are obvious highlights.

http://www.myspace.com/thesenewpuritans

A short interlude later, and the duo head onto stage. Laura-Mary, telecaster in hand, and Steven, ready at the drums, tear into a set full of energy despite both being still as statues. Former single "It's Getting Boring By The Sea" is dropped early into the set as well as the majority of the tracks from the forthcoming (yet already leaked) debut album Box Of Secrets.

While an obvious criticism is the formulaic nature of many of the songs, pretty much all of them step up to the plate and just plain fucking rock. "I Wish That I Was Someone Better" has all the pop-hooks, but they've made old cliches new and full of life, with half the crowd screaming the self-deprecating chorus back at them.

What is interesting, is that despite Blood Red Shoes impressive Indie pedigree - having played well over 300 shows and bounced around independent labels for a good couple of years, but they are still relatively unknown and still appear to be having good fun at what they are doing. Steven jokes with the crowd and Laura-Mary demurely grins into the microphone, occasionally shuffling closer to the crowd, eager to enjoy their well-deserved praise.

Past the 40 minute mark, however, patience is wearing thin. The songs begin to melt into one another, and while those at the front are still as enthralled as ever, the rest of the crowd are not quite as interested anymore. Just how far Blood Red Shoes can take their brand of noise remains to be seen - their album Box Of Secrets is to be released on Monday - but tonight they dissapear offstage for mere seconds before an encore that ends with the explosive "ADHD".

Their music may be simple, lyrics perhaps contrived, but it is anything but Indie-by-numbers, and thats whats important.