Box of Secrets by UK band Blood Red Shoes (BRS) actually has a gutsy punch to their sonic assault, immediately putting them above 90% of all their garage rock revival contemporaries. Well, to be fair, while they have the raucous spirit, the better production values probably only did them favors if The Strokes‘ Is This It‘s absent percussion is any indication.

Anyway, BRS choose pop and punk over blues and “indie,” making for a delectable combination that doesn’t hold itself back through passe riffs or a lazy semi-ironic, privileged, upper-class attitude. As they confess in “Try Harder,” sometimes they’re “trying too hard,” but I’d rather be able to tell when a band was trying too hard than not trying hard enough.

I developed a huge crush on Laura-Mary Carter when I first encountered the band, and that might have influenced my listening to BRS in the first place. Back in 2015 during some horny stupor, I originally wrote “I like to keep my modern indie rock reviews appropriately PG-13, but damn.” While I was editing this decade-old review in 2025, it had been so long since I’d seen her that I looked her name up again. I’m glad I did, because I discovered she wasn’t a natural redhead like I had always thought! I think I was really into her style around the summer of 2006, if certain pictures are sourced correctly. Does any of this matter? Fuck no. But even in my revisions, I’m compelled to retain even my most worthless thoughts. I guess it can help my fans (?) determine what my “type” is?

But far more important than her appearance is the fact Carter has the rare kind of singing voice that’s pleasant, tuneful, yet still shrill enough to tear alongside an electric guitar. Just right for the times. In my opinion, she really ought to be fronting the band, but some lame git takes priority over her. In all seriousness, Steve Ansell is a decent vocalist in his own right, but I still can’t help but feel that these songs don’t reach full their potential. I also can’t tell some of the tracks in the album’s middle apart—it’s all the same damn tempo. Those tunes are lucky they’re so cute.

Box of Secrets is fun, and every once in a while BRS gets their own synthesis right and reach that combination of contrasting vocals, pop, and punk that drills into your brain. Here, that’s best-observed in “It’s Getting Boring by the Sea.” I also have to recommend “Don’t Ask” on Blood Red Shoes’ follow-up album, Fire Like This. One of the few modern bands I’d recommend to pop-rock-heads.