Heartsink

Blood Red Shoes are two people—Laura-Mary Carter and Steven Ansell—making the kind of noise that sounds like it should require at least five. Their 2010 album Fire Like This pushed harder and louder than their debut, and Heartsink sits in the middle of it like a bruise. There’s something confrontational about how thin the setup is: guitar, drums, two voices trading off, no padding, nowhere to hide. Either the song is there or it isn’t. With these two, it usually is.