Voxtrot - Blood Red Blood Single Review

Voxtrot
Blood Red Blood
Single Review

They're a greedy lot, the Texans. Not content with roaming a state bigger than most countries, when they're not trying to take over the world (or at least those nice oily bits) they're never-ending in their appetite for magnitude - everyone seems to want bigger cars, bigger houses, bigger portions, bigger waistbands.

So it is with Voxtrot. Not for the Austin 5-piece a skinny Noo Yoik pastrami-on-rye verse-chorus-verse, oh no. These chaps want the whole damn bull on a spit with every condiment under the sun, a huge wedge of cheese, bacon and onion rings. And fries. Lots of fries. They won't be satisfied unless there's at least three different flavours of chorus, with a supersized portion of onion strings, whopping chunks of atonal sax and extra bits everywhere. And while you're at it, make sure you're singing about the big issues like mortality and making the most of your short time on earth or there'll be no tip, comprende?

So when 'Blood Red Blood' starts off with rather perfunctory Strokesy guitar and bass drum pulse, just think of it as an amuse-bouche. And when, like a burger mouthful of gherkin and tomato (certainly a taste you don't mind, but not quite what you were hoping for), an okay-ish chorus flits by it's nothing to get concerned about, because the really tasty meat is just round the corner. The momentum starts to take as Ramesh Srivastava begins to ponder his posthumous legacy and before you know it there's the real chorus - calm at first but then repeated in beefy singalong grandeur - "I'm just trying to do my best, I'm not afraid of life, I'm afraid of death".

Where it might have been easy enough to carry on in a similar vein for the rest of the track however we get served a huge twist of cacophonous sax and descending string-soaked chords as Srivastava's musings take a more urgent tone, before the chorus reappears ever more emphatic. Things don't stop there however - a third stunning hook drives the song to a symphonic conclusion, finally disintegrating back into sax mayhem for the final seconds. It's nothing short of sublime.

But that's not all! Even when you've stuffed your face full of pop magic sometimes you still have room for pudding, so 'New Love' is the perfect dessert - an infuriatingly catchy little nothing that still betters most A-sides you'll hear this year without breaking sweat. It's the sort of song that, had Pete Doherty penned it, would be sitting at the top of the charts for the best part of a month. Srivastava even throws in a Buddy Holly-esque vocal tic at one point which, quite frankly, is just showing off. But when everything's this tasty, why complain? Mmm...

Owen Lloyd