- Artist
- Good Shoes
- Label
- Brille
- Release date
- 26th March 2007
- Genre
- Indie
Yet more angular late-teens art-rockers struggle to find themselves on too soon debut
The confusion of youth has always been the fuel on which great pop music has run. From The Shirelles’ Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow right through to Britney’s Hit Me Baby One More Time, it’s the quandaries at the heart of being young, and more to the point, of young love that can make pop so powerful and universal.
South London indie four-piece Good Shoes’ debut sounds well-versed in this knowledge – but goes further into being a thoroughly confusing proposition altogether.
Alongside lead singer Rhys Jones’ annoying mix of talking-singing via Pete Shelley vocal style, Good Shoes songs go for the du jour sound of the suburbs: broken and breaking hearts, nights out on the piss, boring hometowns. However, without the wit and depth of a Jamie T or Lily Allen, Jones’ penchant for flitting between awkward confessionals ("When you walk into my room, all my insecurities are summed up" on Nazanin) and arch art student smart-arse-isms ("I’m a talented artist but my heart’s not in it, I’m a good shag but I find nobody fit" on All In My Head) merely reveals a lack of talent for the former, a self-loathing knack for the latter.
Tunes-wise, Good Shoes owe a debt to The Buzzcocks and The Jam but their jerkily rhythmic guitar pop has been nailed by The Futureheads of late. It’s short, sharp and furiously-paced, but with an unsure eye on the (indie) dancefloor and lacking the funk undertones you’ll find on a Franz Ferdinand or Gossip number.
Standout track and former single Photos On My Wall is the moment when all elements coalesce: reflective words, cheekily derivative riff and clever variations of pace. However, that title Think Before You Speak sums up how this is a band with a brash exterior, struggling to find its voice. Who’d be a teenager, eh?
Also try: The Futureheads – The Futureheads Buzzcocks – Love Bites The Jam – All Mod Cons Razorlight – Up All Night
