Good Shoes – No Hope, No Future

Arctic Monkeys

"No Hope, No Future"

01 February 2010, 12:00 | Written by Daniel Offen

(Albums)

(Arctic Monkeys)

There’s nothing wrong with Good Shoes, nothing wrong at all. They make perfectly sensible indie rock that sounds like the Arctic Monkeys, and it’s all very good an well. Not particularly inspired, original or revolutionary really, but then does it have to be? No Hope, No Future doesn’t have me paying much attention to it, but then it hardly leaves me running screaming from the room with my ears covered, and who could ask for much more from noughties indie rock? No Hope, No Future is a relic from the noughties, almost to the point of seeming dated, is this sort of stuff still really popular? It is relevant? Or are Good Shoes just hanging on to the glory days of this-sort-of-thing?Anyway, that all seems rather unimportant, who cares about the context and relevancy of a record if it’s good? Despite my previous comments about the abject mediocrity of No Hope, No Future it does have strong elements to it. Opener 'The Way My Heart Bleeds' paints a optimistic picture for the rest of the album, but it never really moves past that point. There’s little variation, or original ideas contained within. Just the same old indie rock repeated ad infititum, good but not exceptional.I suppose I’m being unnecessarily harsh, Good Shoes do what they say on the tin, and I don’t think anybody would expect any more from them. To do so would be betraying their fans and a highly odd thing to do. I suppose it’s a shame that this album has come out about 2 years late when everybody’s appetite for this-sort-of-thing has declined. Nobody wants to hear Rhys Jones singing exactly like Alex Turner, despite being from London not Sheffield, we’ve heard it all before and gotten bored with it.Maybe there’s some hidden genius to this album that I have not managed to uncover, maybe the lyrics (which didn’t seem particularly worthy of attention) hold an incredible worth of subtext and imagery that my puny brain couldn’t really uncover, but on the face of things No Hope, No Future is happily mediocre. Enjoyable and jolly, but far from sensational.