Bold and brassy, the debut long player from GOOD SHOES turns heads right from the moment of its knocking percussion introduction. Once acquired, it’s a taste that could prove insatiable, and the listener is caught up with the runaway momentum as ‘Nazarin’ kicks in - with that honking banging structure alive with street sounds and harmonics.
A year or more of constant gigging has underlined the Morden pop stars' flow of singles, allowing their acquired taste sound to sink into the public ears. As if to illustrate this, their staccato flow continues over the stop-start jerk of single ‘The Photos On My Wall’ (one of the four included in this 14-track bonanza) and the dry incisive observational worldliness of th’pilled out pumped up youth flows fast through the languid bounce of Rhys’s vocal commentary.
This welcome Late ‘70’s soundtrack surely comes as a response to the same sort of rum deal thrown out by the economic pattern, as resurgent consumerism once again throws up the same tensions. Hence the glass towers that create new shadows over the decaying shopping centre portrayal of their sideways-stab anthem to their hometown. ‘Morden’. As the infrastructure soars and plummets, so does the musical merry go round. This new threat has no real figurehead to aim the hatred and resentment at, but this seems to make the punked-out sound bristle with all the more energy, pent up and apathetic responses to a pressure that’s largely hidden, mingling together as the brain short-circuits and cuts out.
The dualling skank-out of the debut single ‘We Are Not The Same’ showcases wandering basslines under a backdrop of headache-inducing persistence. It’s a case of heads done in, done well - and with alarming rhythmic depth.
Spiky as they may seem, the DIY feel to their choppy sounding structure is only a thin veil for the wonderfully throwaway brilliance shining in the melodic gemstones that this record is studded with. The confused distraction of ‘Sophia’, and the utterly beautiful ‘Small Town Girl’ are both stomping thumbnail sketches of kids caught up in the machinery. The thump of the bass drum elsewhere announces the argumentative ‘Everybody’s Talking’, a drifting psycho-trail of thought with an amphetamine single-track pulse.
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There is a naïve charm that runs through this collection, questioning, edgy, streetwise and unwise in equal bursts. It’s like the record just won’t settle. Despite the single-minded concoction of their arrangements, there is a depth, and a variety in their work, which rains down on you soulfully like heavy rain and sheet lightning from clouds that still look silver-lined.
The surge of ‘Ice Age’ bleeps and beams out an intermittent signal with a looped voice over crushed ice, The hand-clapping frenzy co-stars with the warped melodies that delve deep to swerve away from the point. Also guest starring the assonant beauty of rhyming ‘Age’ with ‘Edge’, it’s another beautiful moment in a consistently absorbing corker of a record.
Ending with the sensational ‘Wait’, with an apathetic double-barrel levelled at futility, this is food for the head and the soul, senses alive! For those who waited, it has been worth it, no question.
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