Good Shoes - No Hope, No Future

Listening back to Good Shoes’ 2007 debut Think Before You Speak, it really is striking how much the pop landscape has changed in three short years. Back then, Good Shoes’ perky, spiky pop and chirpy London accents were just the ticket when every label was looking for a new Razorlight, Franz Ferdinand or Bloc Party. Now, things couldn’t be more different: the infinitely more esoteric likes of Vampire Weekend, Animal Collective and Grizzly Bear have all enjoyed huge success.  Brilliant and beautiful girls like Bat For Lashes and Florence and the Machine are the new goldmine. Old-fashioned indie rock has taken a back seat. Those bands that did gain any traction in 2009, The Horrors and Wild Beasts, are a far remove from the norm.
 
In truth, Good Shoes’ debut was reasonably good, comfortably a cut above that of their peer group. But next to, say, Animal Collective’s furious zeal for innovation or Bat For Lashes’ iconic beauty, they do feel a touch unglamorous. All of which begs the question: how can a band so obviously the sound, and look, of three years ago find an audience in these difficult times? The short answer is that they probably won’t, but on No Hope, No Future, Good Shoes make a pretty good fist of things. Probably incapable of reinventing themselves, they do at least add a bit more rumble and snap to their sound. The lumbering grooves and vocal ticks of ‘Under Control’ recall a more accessible version of The Fall. It’s a sound that they wear well. The same half-singing-half-talking vocals crop up on ‘Times Change’, again to winning effect. The portentously titled ‘Our Loving Mother In A Pink Diamond’ sounds impressively muscular, something you couldn’t have said of their debut.
 
Elsewhere though, a lack of development hampers them. ‘Do You Remember’ sounds almost exactly like all the songs on their debut, and brings us to another, more insurmountable problem. As was the case with Think Before You Speak, their songs are often hugely enjoyable while you’re listening to them, but impossible to remember once the record has played out. Listening to Good Shoes is like drinking two Cokes in a row: pretty good while you’re doing it, but after you finish you’re not particularly keen to try it again.