Occasionally, Last.fm does one of its jobs better than I expect. Case in point: Blood Red Shoes, a band I almost certainly would never have discovered if not for its recommendations, which usually tell me about bands I’ve heard of but don’t listen to much because I can’t be bothered to or just don’t particularly like. The UK duo are neither; recommended on the basis of my Long Blondes and Kills listening history, they’re supposed to have a range of influences cherry-picked from the American indie scene of the 90s—names like Fugazi and Sleater-Kinney. Unfortunately—and I almost hate to say this because it’s such a dumb thing to dismiss a band for—some of their music videos and pictures give off an entirely different vibe that I might describe as just too far this side of Evanescence and My Chemical Romance.

Take, for instance, the beginning of “I Wish I Was Someone Better,” which has the normally lovely Laura-Mary Carter machine-gunning the cameraperson with her guitar and looking like some floppy haired emo singer. The band say the video treatment is a bit of a response to the whole “young and sweet” image, which might explain why the guitar shooting thing comes off a bit goth-emo—after all, what are emo teenagers but young people trying very hard not to look sweet? But never mind that, because it’s not as though they don’t have more endearing videos, and besides all that the music is really quite ace. Carter and collaborator Steven Ansell play some terrifically intense garage punk that seem to combine many of my favourite motifs in music: lots of energy, male-female vocal tradeoffs, women yelling in my ear (”I can’t concentrate on anything at all”), razor-sharp guitars, and drumlines that’ll rattle your cage.

And though the band doesn’t appreciate even the hint of comparison with that other drums/guitar garage duo, the White Stripes, their composition is at least a neat inversion of that formula. Meg White gets a lot of flak, whether deserved or otherwise (I think not), for not contributing very much to the White Stripes sound. This probably has to do with the relatively simple, straightforward drum parts in their songs, combined with White’s tendency to look perpetually distracted by daydreams while playing live. As a result the common portrait is of the man who writes all the songs and plays wicked guitar, carrying the woman who can play the drums well enough to make it through the set, but doesn’t seem to be the creative force her partner is.

But it’s awfully hard to make that sort of claim here; not only do Carter and Ansell do a much better job of visibly sharing the musical responsibilities, but both are quite clearly good at their respective instruments. Carter’s contributions are especially hard to dismiss, since her buzzsaw guitar is such a major part of the band’s sound. Not that the idea of women being able to play their instruments properly or contribute their share of the songwriting should be at all in question these days, especially when there’s more than enough evidence to satisfy anyone who’s paid any attention at all to popular music. But it’s interesting what swapping instruments between genders can do to change perceptions.