Greatness & Imperfection
John L Murphy | Los Angeles | 08/03/2005
(4 out of 5 stars)
"You probably know what the band sounds like already. Support them with your cash; they deserve it. I'm focusing here a bit more on the arguments made for the band's legacy in the collection itself, verbally and musically. A Creation compilation following the wake of a great Swervedriver one, this is handsomely presented and thoughtfully sequenced.
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.
"
Track Listings (20) - Disc #1