New colour repress on the brilliant BRS album Get Tragic.

The story of ‘Get Tragic’ can be traced way back to the relentless gigging off the back of their 2014 self-produced and self-titled record, when the heels finally fell off of Blood Red Shoes at the end of that same year. A near-decade of incessant road time and a non-stop pace of life finally took its toll, with the band stopping only to quickly hammer out “another ten songs” to release as their next record, before ploughing straight back into touring. The pair exhausted themselves to the point of collapse. “We didn’t, at any point, have a breather,” says Steven Ansel (drums and vocals), “We probably didn’t see each other for about 10 days a year, tops, for six or seven years.” Understandably, such incessant close proximity led to implosion. “We got the to the end of the fourth record and were like, ‘F**k you, I never want to see you again’,”Steven adds, half-laughing, half-sighing.

Vocalist and guitarist Laura Mary-Carter packed her bags and bought a one-way flight to Los Angeles, a complete radio-silence between the two bandmates stretching on for months. She fell in with a songwriter’s crowd, penning tracks and collaborations with big-time pop producers and pitching songs for the likes of Rihanna. It provided her with “a lot of time to reassess,” she says. Steven, conversely, “went out and took drugs and went clubbing for about half a year,” he laughs. “I don’t remember a lot about it. Classic break-up move, right?”