Blood Red Shoes

Blood Red Shoes on tour in Germany for four concerts in October

For over twenty years, Blood Red Shoes have resisted any clear classification — and that is precisely their strength. What began as a reduced two-person project has developed into one of the most enduring and idiosyncratic constants in British alternative rock. Without much pathos, but with all the more emphasis, Laura-Mary Carter and Steven Ansell have always pursued an approach aimed at maximum artistic control and immediate impact.

Founded in 2005 in Brighton in southern England, the band emerged from the disintegration of previous projects. A new start that quickly picked up steam: With hundreds of concerts, Carter and Ansell earned themselves a reputation early on that was based less on calculated career planning than on sheer stage impact. Their debut “Box of Secrets” was released in 2008, but the band's real driving force was always the live experience: loud, uncompromising, physical.

It is precisely this energy that drives Blood Red Shoes to this day. While genres are increasingly dissolving into niches, the duo insists on simply calling themselves a “rock band” — a term that, as they themselves say, means almost nothing anymore and is therefore appropriate. Between alternative rock, indie bonds and a deliberately raw sound, their music remains difficult to grasp, but all the more immediate.

A central chapter of this story takes place on stages all over the world. Over 300 concerts in the early years, festivals such as Reading or T in the Park, later international tours — Blood Red Shoes have won their audience in the truest sense of the word. Her shows aren't perfectly choreographed spectacles, but physical events: two people who fill the room with maximum intensity. For 2026, the duo is now announcing their first big tour since the 2024 anniversary concerts, with a set that combines old pieces with new material.

After a four-year break, new music will be released in 2026 — written, produced and mixed entirely by ourselves. A work that not only demonstrates artistic autonomy, but also the consistency with which Carter and Ansell go their own way. At the same time, Carter's solo work shows a different, introspective side, but at its core, the duo remains a place of friction, volume and directness.