No Hope, No Future

VINYL FORMAT. Good Shoes have always been an intriguing and contrary force. When their debut Think Before You Speak was released in 2007, it was heralded as one of the year's indie successes, with its fashionable jangly-guitar and pop-perfect tunes. However underneath its racing chart-friendly heart lay a band with an unbreakable punk ethos and a true independent soul. A band who made music simply for the love of creation, who similarly made their own distinctive and charmingly homemade videos. A band who never entertained commercial success, but who played sped up, ecstatic punk sets that caused muso's hearts to explode. Such ethos and unbridled energy shows no sign of faltering on Good Shoes second album No Hope, No Future. Self written, recorded and produced (naturally) in Morden basements and bedrooms for a grand total of £5,000 (sandwiches included), No Hope, No Future has a character and emotive rawness sadly lost on the usual predictably shiny and overly-produced second album. Even the album artwork is D.I.Y. with Good Shoes fans being invited to Crystal Palace pool to be shot for the sleeve. As always, it's a family affair.

That's not to say some things haven't changed. The off-kilter indie-pop of 'The Way My Heart Beats' and sleazy disco-flecked 'Under Control' are unmistakably Good Shoes - instant indie dance-floor classics with head-spinning riffs (but with just a little less 'jangle' than before). But when album track 'Then She Walks Away' hits with it's pleading vocals laced in regret and 'Everything You Do,' a dark droning track of moody atmospherics and disenchanted vocals ("everything you do, everything you say, always ends up turning out the same"), it's apparent Good Shoes have matured. Some would call it a break-up album, with the universally recognized fear of being on the edge relayed beautifully in 'City By The Sea,' but in truth it's the sound of a band evolving, as it should, with a more intricate and at times heavier sound. It's the unstoppable creative force that is Good Shoes moving on and up and offering another even better, bolder record. Hail the return of indie's saviors.