Good Shoes - 'Think Before You Speak' (Brille) Released 26/03/07

‘Think Before you Speak’ is an album with its feet in Morden and its heart firmly on its sleeve.  From the charming opener ‘Nazanin’ this is a stunning, day-glo Liechtenstein-pop-art pop record.  Niggling, grinning paranoia underpins every glorious dancefoor-slashing tune.  Not that any of this can tarnish the fact their sound is utterly gleaming with consumer friendly primary colours and shiny, sparkling pigeon-toed swagger.  Somehow, though, none of this ever sounds contrived: guitars stutter and vocals insistently stammer over twitchingly tight melodies and choppy riffs, and all smiling with a charming, sweet wide-eyed innocence.  With all of this, somehow they collage together minutely accurate sketches of London (the Camden Barfly in all its dingy, sweaty charm; Candybox’s indie-charade meatmarket) with genius brush strokes of England-wide universality.

Spinning, breathless guitars on ‘We Are Not the Same’ sums up their stop-start, left-right knack at heartfelt, itchy-feet pop songs.  At once it stumbles, trips and marches forward with aching determination.  There’s an irresistible naivety under the world-weary, London-wise vocals, and that’s what draws you in.  To avoid being more clichéd than rich art students in tatty plimsolls, the album’s sweetness lies in the way their stunningly catchy tines are so accessible, and articulate so well the insecurities, worries and chipper arrogance of tentative youthful steps forward.  Romance, suburbia and Superdrug are the neon-lit picture postcards that light the streets of growing up, and each sincere slice of pop-perfection paints them so, so well.  Desperate yet reassuring ‘Small Town Girl’ is a perfect example, and it’s only when rather dubious lyrics kick in on ‘In The City’ (“like Jack and Jill but with heroin”) that a glimmer of doubt surfaces for the album.

Each track is like a scrawled-on Polaroid snapshot of, well, exactly how it seems Good Shoes actually feel, what they see, and what their tears at bedtime arise from.  ‘All in My Head’ is as hilarious as it is infectious: “I’m a good shag but I find nobody fit”: it cumulates into a nod of reassurance to anyone who finds themselves fretting for going on two hours about whether they might bump into that weird kid they fancy with the bowlcut by the jukebox.  “Do you ever feel like you’ve broken someone’s heart?  I do!” is the high pitched yelp-for-help on ‘Never Meant to Hurt You’.  If Good Shoes carry on making music this, well, good, it seems there will be hearts a plenty for them to trample on in future.  Then again, it wouldn’t be too hard to forgive them.