The eponymous album is often a band’s statement of intent, usually reserved for a debut release or to signal a major change of direction, as with Blur’s first post-Britpop album.

But according to guitarist Laura-Mary Carter, the decision not to give Blood Red Shoes’ fourth album a title felt natural.

“This album is just us,” she says. “Some of the lyrics are totally improvised – there’s a lot of spontaneity to it.

“We have got to the point where we know who we are – we know our weaknesses and our strengths.

“With this album, we have taken everything we have learned and come back around full circle to find out what was good about our first record.

“All the stuff that people liked and what we have learned along the way has been put into this album. We feel like it is our sound and has captured what we are like live.”

Blood Red Shoes is the first album guitarist Carter and drummer Steven Ansell have written and recorded outside of Brighton – decamping to Berlin for the six months of sessions.

“We wanted to write somewhere else,” says Carter, back in Berlin the night after the pair played to a packed 1,600-capacity concert hall. “Berlin was an inspiring place to write.”

It was a chance discovery of a piano in a studio that led to the first recorded track for the new album last March, and turned the original writing plans into full recording sessions.

“I was originally a piano player,” says Carter. “I wasn’t great at it but I had lessons, whereas I taught myself to play guitar. I hadn’t played piano for ages but when I got on this one, I wrote Tightwire [which closes the new album].

“I knew there was something special about being there – the sound was awesome.”

Blood Red Shoes is also the first album the band have recorded by themselves, breaking away from long-time producer Mike Crossey.

“We used to record our early 7in singles,” recalls Carter. “And we always recorded our own B-sides.

“Before the third album [2012’s In Time To Voices] we recorded all the tracks as demos in Brighton but they lost something when we went to re-record them in the studio. We ended up using some of the demo versions on the album.

“The spontaneity of writing and recording works for us – and when we got stuck on the new album, Mike was on the phone helping us out.”

She believes a big part of the rawness and heavy guitar sounds proliferating their latest release comes down to timing too, as the pair had just come off a successful US tour of smaller, more intimate venues when they resumed recording sessions in Berlin later that summer.

“It really worked,” says Carter. “I find you have a different mindset going from the studio to play live – it can be more of a headspin. But coming into the studio from playing live we were on a high – we felt like we had found ourselves again.”

Looking back over the band’s ten-year history, Carter admits she took a little time to find herself on stage, especially when they started playing bigger venues.

“I think it dawned on me all of a sudden that all these people had come to see us,” she says. “Maybe there was a little bit more pressure for me. I feel like I’ve come out of that now.”

The kitchen sink approach of the band’s third album didn’t help. Designed to be a more ambitious creation, the band explored richer instrumentation rather than just guitar and drums.

“It was hard to recreate those songs live,” admits Carter. “With this album there’s a lot more we can play. Having struggled with the last album I feel like we have grown as a band.

“Deep down I think it was important we made that album [In Time To Voices]. We learned a lot and really pushed ourselves. I feel like that paid off with this album.”

The pair still maintain a gruelling live regimen of up to 200 shows a year – but amazingly maintain a good working relationship.

“We are both grown-up and different people to who we were as teenagers,” says Carter. “I was always quite shy and maybe not so confident, while Steve was the opposite. Now I can get my personality across. I feel more at ease with the audience and my confidence has grown.

“Every night is different for us – we try to keep the energy up.

“We have been on this tour now for three and a half weeks, but it feels like a week. When we first started, I used to be ill all the time but now I rarely am.

“I’ve learned how to sleep in the van too. I used to be a really bad sleeper but I’ve learnt how to sleep in the weirdest positions.”

Support from Slaves and DZ Deathrays.