Find the Way Out

Anyway, from the indie underground to Number 1 in just five years - not bad work by the Boos, especially given their impressive sonic evolution between point A and point B. The entire technicolour journey is chronicled here in gloriously remastered detail.

Disc 1 charts the Wirral band's rise from pedal happy Dinosaur Jr fans (this era culled from 1990's long out of print Ichabod & I LP and a slew of increasingly ambitious EPs for Action Records and Rough Trade) through their early Creation Records days as shoegazing troubadours (1991's Everything's Alright Forever and attendent EPs) to their arrival as full-blown-mind guitar pop geniuses with 1993's Giant Steps - a bona fide White Album for the early 90s indie set.

On this sprawling double album, Boos songwriter Martin Carr finally blossomed, with proper widescreen production helping mini epics like the indie dub odyssey of Lazaurus come to life. There's a reason people are evangelical about this record. You'll have to hear it in full to understand why - preferably on double vinyl on a good stereo - but the tracks included here (the extended 12" version of Lazarus, Best Lose The Fear, I Hang Suspended, I've Lost The Reason, Wish I Was Skinny and Barney And Me) provide a mouth-watering taste of its genius.

Disc 2 starts by covering the band's 15 minutes of mainstream fame. How many idiots loved the horn infused pop glory of Wake Up Boo! so much they went out and bought the album, only to flog it to Cash Converters a few months later? Tons, judging by the number of copies currently lurking in the racks of said establishments nationwide.

Perhaps it was 1996's C'Mon Kids! that put the fairweathers off. Here the Boos deliberately kicked off the shackles of pop stardom in fine style, cranking the guitars and ignoring verse-chorus-verse structures in favour of some gloriously arty noise. The title track, What's In The Box?... and Ride The Tiger were a good as anything released pre Wake Up! but the public just weren't interested.

Thus the band released 1998's Kingsize to precisely no fanfare, and to be honest even long-term fans had their doubts about it. Still the highlights here (particularly Blueroom in Archway) provide an enjoyable conclusion to a wonderful listening experience.

In addition to the album tracks mentioned, Find The Way Out joins the dots between records with a selection of b-sides and non-album singles. The new artwork by longtime Boos sleeve designer Stephen Wood is lovely, and the liner notes are comprehensive, with Martin's explanations of the stories behind each song proving particularly enjoyable.

Apparently, the band's last live performance was a sh*tty instore appearance to promote Kingsize. They split with little fanfare and are remembered by most as one-hit wonders.

Frankly, as this collection proves beyond a shadow of a doubt, they deserved much better.

Boo forever!

The excellent liner notes perhaps make a stronger case for the Boo Radleys than I, a longtime fan, would justify. Brian Block gives an overview of the band's ascension via the grittier shoegazing/fuzzy guitar cohorts to more eclectic popsters, to briefly chart-topping fab four Scousers, to again grittier mixers of beats and harshness into their polychromatic textures. Extra points to Block for putting the band's scope next to not only XTC but The Loud Family, an overlooked array of genii from Northern California you all must hear. Keith Cameron sensitively charts the band's rise and decline, although, like Block, I think he gives the latter part of the band's output too much credit and diminishes the appeal of their grottier early shambling noise--"Everything's" a far better album than both reviewers in the notes rate, and I prefer it actually as a whole to "Giant Steps," although that album has the band's best songs.

The selections here take six songs from the very first stage of the band, which is my primary reason for purchasing the anthology, as well as some extended mixes, which frankly outwear their welcome, and a few often very short interludes tracked as separate songs. For those who have followed the band and have the albums and many of the e.p.'s, this is best bought for the impressive notes appended by Martin Carr's own reflections on each of the 35 tracks. I prefer the first to the second disc, as I favor the more guitar-oriented, less danceable side of the band. Disc two's first half sounds like McCartney, the latter part John Lennon, as they try to blend Beatleish reverie and angst, respectively, with a more hip--but more diffused and lumpishly cluttered--sound that in my opinion (the notes suggest this) shows the band floundering in the wake of Oasis/Blur's mid-90s Britpop. While more adventurous than Disc One, it hasn't worn as well, although hearing the title track of what I regard their failed last album here does make an eloquent case for the band's command of craft up to their end.

Still, 5 stars for presentation, three at most for Disc Two and four for Disc One, so I'll average it thus.

P.S. To my fellow Boos Irish fans/cousins, I'm a Galwegian once removed, fair enough?

The key material here comes from the point when they transcended peers like Chapterhouse & Slowdive with the eclectic double-album 'Giant Steps' - highlights from which include singles 'Lazarus', 'I Hang Suspended', 'Wish I Was Skinny' & 'Barney (...and me)', as well as the gorgeous 'Best Lose the Fear' & my favourite track from 'Giant Steps', 'I've Lost the Reason.' There are still plenty of tracks from 'Giant Steps' not here - 'Find the Way Out', 'Thinking of Ways', 'The White Noise Revisited' - and odd that something like 'Blues for George Michael' is picked over the sublime 'Touchdown Jesus' from the reissue of 'Lazarus'...

The second disc opens with their most famous moment, 'Wake Up Boo!', which is overplayed and overfamiliar but was quite gorgeous with 'Pet Sounds' aspirations at the time (here it's merged with the electronic instrumental 'Music for Astronauts'). I was never that convinced by the other pop-singles from 'Wake Up' - 'It's Lulu' and 'Find the Answer Within'- but at least the great melancholy of 'Reaching Out from Here' is present (sad that 'Wilder' didn't make the cut as well!). 'From the Bench at Belvidere' is a nostalgic pop-rush released as a one-off single finding a home here, and the material from 'C'mon Kids' is welcome - an album almost as great as 'Giant Steps' ('Everything is Sorrow' I'd have liked to see here...). The tile track & 'What's in the Box' put The Boos' back in that noisey guitar place they were earlier; though by 1998's 'Kingsize' most people had lost interest - that album may very well be unsung, though single 'Free Huey' sounds like Jesus Jones, so maybe not!

A reminder of how interesting non-corporate indie bands could be and one of the acts on Creation people appear to forget - much more than just 'Wake Up Boo!' anyway. Martin Carr's releases after under the Brave Captain-moniker is rewarding Lennon-in-Space stuff too - that no one bought!