REVIEW: Boo Radleys, Kingsize (Creation/Never)
- Tim Mohr
Kingsize turns out to be the final album from the late, nearly-great Boo Radleys, who have decided to pack it in after a decade. Fittingly, it exemplifies their considerable strengths, as well as their weaknesses and idiosynchrasies.
Songwriter Martin Carr is a boffin capable--when he feels like it - of writing eerily perfect pop songs such as "Finest Kiss" from Learning To Walk or "Wake Up, Boo!" and "Find The Answer Within" from Wake Up, Boo!. But most of the time he seems intent on undercutting his songs with eccentric ideas that usually include lots of noise (_C'mon Kids) or weird sounds and arrangements (_Giant Steps) - resulting in lots of near-misses.
The title song on Kingsize shows what Carr can do--it's a buoyant pop song that swells to anthemic proportions. "Eurostar" and "Comb Your Hair" also showcase the beauty of the Boos: "You've been away too long. It's lonely when you're gone" goes a chorus that Boo fans may soon be singing to the band members.
"Blue Room in Archway," the album opener, has soft melodic vocals over a gentle piano line that yields to distorted vocals over loud guitar passages supplemented by horns and strings - experimental in a mid-60s Beatles way, but also, in the same way, very pop.
"The Old Newsstand at Hamilton Square" picks up some faux-soul groove - like Dodgy - then swings into a chunky guitar solo. The Boos adamantly refuse to go in one direction, much less musical style, in any given song. "Future Is Now" is a reach: the vintage synth burps and swirls could go.
Compared to the distractingly noisy C'mon Kids, Kingsize is a very restrained affair. The arrangements are a little odd - a Curtis Mayfield sample here, some programmed beats, strings, or scratches there - but remain relatively quiet.
Kingsize sees the Boos going out with a whimper, not a bang, but this may please fans put off by the seemingly contrived bluster of C'mon Kids.
