Album Review: The Boo Radleys - "Keep On With Falling"

 

It's fair to say that up until a couple of years ago, a new Boo Radleys album was one of the last things I expected to be reviewing. The group were one of my favourites in the mid-'90s with their killer three-album run of Giant Steps, Wake Up! and C'mon Kids being a trio of wildly varied but undeniably intoxicating albums ranging from Britpop melodies to some truly frazzled weirdness.

The elephant in the room here, of course, is that the new Boo Radleys line-up is missing guitarist and chief songwriter Martin Carr (he remains on friendly terms with the group but decided against the reunion a couple of years ago) and, much as I hate to say it, unfortunately his absence is noticeable here. Keep On With Falling is certainly the most accessible Boo Radleys album , stuffed full of bright breezy melodies and winsome vocal harmonising with a definite Beach Boys influence in there. There's plenty of perfectly pleasant songs in there such as All Along and the Alone Again Or influenced Tonight and it's an inoffensive enough 40-odd minute listen.

The issue unfortunately is that with Carr gone, a lot of the unexpected twists and turns which were always one of the things you looked forward to in a Boo Radleys album have gone with him leaving a record that's disappointingly straightforward. That's not to slag it off by the way - there's plenty of nice sunshiny indie-pop in there - I Say A Lot Of Things is almost like Wake Up Boo! Mk 2 with its horns and chiming vocals from Sice and Alone Together is a pleasant slice of acoustic led introspection. But you can't help wishing for something like a Bullfrog Green or a Leaves And Sand or even a Martin, Doom! It's 7 O'Clock to throw a bit of a curveball into the formula. To be fair, they do try in places such as on the Lazarus style dub reggae of Here She Comes Again and the way that A Full Syringe And Memories Of You and I Can't Be What You Want Me To Be both go from quiet introspection to distorted squall but even on here it sounds more like Boo Radleys lite than anything with the spark missing a bit.

Keep On With Falling is perfectly fine for what it is, namely a gentle '60s influenced indie-pop album with nods to Brian Wilson and Arthur Lee. But it's difficult to escape the feeling throughout that there's an essential component missing to the formula here. Sorry guys.

NITE SONGS RATING: 🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌔🌑🌑🌑 (7/10)

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