Blood Red Shoes

Teenagers, eh? When they are not sleeping or hanging around on street corners, they just love stomping around the place in a huge strop, banging and crashing and generally making a heck of a row. Notwithstanding the research that indicates that all teenagers develop a state akin to autism at some point during those six years, it's still a situation which is barely mitigated by the fact that, at 18, they can at last stand their own round and buy their own fags.

Hooray, then, for Steven Ansell and Laura-Mary Carter, who have at last found a way to channel a single teenage tantrum into a 30 minute set. Think of the White Stripes, but with smaller egos and more talent for drumming. Or, if you prefer, Giant Drag, only slightly less filthy -but probably only because they are too young to have fucked Chris Isaak. You certainly can't be fooled by Carter's 'little girl lost, look at me in my shift dress and pumps' routine, not when she tells you you all look 'fucking awful' for no apparent reason.

If anything lets Blood Red Shoes down tonight it is teenage impetuosity. Introductions are garbled, timing goes awry and Carter muffs the bit where she switches from the guitar she has been playing to one she can smash. Despite that, "It's Getting Boring By The Sea" and the perfectly titled "ADHD" are on a par with anything Ash managed at the same age, whilst "Leaving You" allies a hitherto unhinted-at sense of humour with superb comic timing. The only thing that can stop them is growing older.