Steven Ansell and Laura-Mary Carter make up the Brighton-based two-piece Blood Red Shoes. Having been together since 2005, with extensive touring of the humbler UK venues and the slightly-less-humble due to their inclusion on last year’s NME New Music Tour, they now release their debut album.With Ansell on drumming duties, Carter on guitar and both of them providing vocals, this is a band that succeeds in very much becoming bigger than the sum of their parts. They are also a band worth persisting with: it was not until about my third or fourth listen-through of the album that its qualities began to properly reveal themselves, in their fairly hypnotic glory.  If you’ve not heard the band before then they are best described as a rock outfit, along the lines of noisy “alternative” bands from the last couple of decades such as Pixies (this is a very common reference point), Sonic Youth etc. Although their antecedants and most obvious influences are American, this is very obviously an English act, and the vocals are delivered in an appealingly natural-sounding English accent ”“ witness the glottal stops in 'Wishing I Was Someone Better'.Thematically it would appear that this is a pair of Angry Young Things, with many of the songs portraying frustration (“Dunno why I can’t function / In this dead end it’s not possible” from 'You Bring Me Down'), righteous fury ('Doesn’t Matter Much'), failure to achieve (“Trying so hard to be looked up to” from 'Try Harder'). This is most concentrated in the brilliant 'ADHD' with Ansell and Carter alternating lines such as “Well I’m so bored I can’t stand still” and “I can’t think straight”, ending up as almost a scream of frustration from Carter “I”¦ can’t ”¦ concentrate”. This is a song that actually manages to sound, and feel, very close to the condition that's named after. Drug use is hinted at in 'Try Harder' with the cynical “All the dumb lines we used last night / Will never make us wake up and feel okay”; and there's perhaps a Kurt Cobain reference in 'Forgive Nothing' when they sing “Create an image so contrived / Laughing at your sad demise / (”¦) Oh, so, never mind”.  Vocal duties are pretty much shared out between the two from song to song and on individual songs too. Carter has a particularly impressive voice ”“ tuneful and with a touch of Kim Deal about it ”“ which comes through strongly when she takes lead, and accentuates the band’s way with a tune. This is most marked on 'This Is Not For You' and 'Hope You Are Holding Out', but her voice also works well when providing a sometimes ghostly-sounding backing to Ansell’s lead (as with her repetition of “No no no no no no no boy” on 'ADHD'). Ansell’s voice is perhaps the more workmanlike of the two, but delivers his lines in an appropriately loud, gutsy and angry way, fitting in well with the noisy guitar squall and percussion.As you would expect from the debut album of a band who have been around for a little while, there are four previous singles found here: 'ADHD', 'You Bring Me Down', 'It’s Getting Boring By The Sea' and 'I Wish I Was Someone Better'. The next single is going to be 'Say Something, Say Anything' which is a great choice: I think it's perhaps the strongest track of all here, with its irregular and tricksy time signature (a device also used to good effect on 'Take The Weigh'), the sole use of swearing on the album (although I would imagine there will be a radio-friendly version with this excised), and its appealing minor-key tune. 'ADHD', and 'This Is Not For You'” probably come a close second, and in fact there is not really a track here that I did not end up enjoying ”“ after the requisite number of listens. By all accounts this young band are also cracking live, so I shall make sure I catch them on their current tour for some tuneful, invigorating angst-rock. 73%Links Blood Red Shoes [official site] [myspace]