Eight is a great number

By Henry Lipput

Despite a gap of 24 years between albums, The Boo Radleys great new release Eight (BooSTR Records) continues the band’s brilliant sonic journey. Eight is not only where the new album fits in Boo Radleys discography, it also makes it clear there’s a throughline in the history of a band that before last year had not released an album since 1998 and where the band is now.

Speaking of the 2022 release, Keep on With Falling brought back three members of the band’s original lineup with Sice on vocals, guitar, and keyboards; Rob Cieka on drums, percussion, and vocals; and Tim Brown on bass, guitar, keyboards, and vocals. It was wonderful the hear them making music together again and I really enjoyed the album especially the singles, “Keep on With Falling” and “A Full Syringe And Memories Of You” as well as the songs “I’ve Had Enough I’m Out” and “I Say A Lot Of Things.”

Eight, however, is a giant step (I couldn’t help myself) in the band’s regeneration (I prefer that to “reboot”). I’m not sure if the album’s fuller sound has anything to do with the fact it’s the first Boo Radleys album I’ve had on vinyl (the 1990s were a vinyl wasteland in the U.S.) but there’s the confidence of the three members and their musical associates having a great time (by the way, it’s also sounding more than fine as a download). The album begins with a banger called “Seeker” and keeps going with “Now That’s What I Call Obscene” (a pro-LGBTQ anthem comparing military killing machines with loving same-sex couples and the people who have no problem with the first one), “Wash Away That Feeling” (a showcase for both Brown and Sice), and the closing rave up “How Was I To Know?”

I started listening to Boo Radleys about halfway through their original run with 1995’s pure pop blast Wake Up! and then eagerly moved on to the glorious From the Bench at Belvidere EP (I still LOVE the title song and “Almost Nearly There”), the little-loved but time-for-a-rethink What’s in The Box? (there is the lovely “New Brighton Promenade” and the very cool “Annie and Marnie” B-side), and 1998’s Kingsize, an album I consider to be the band’s crown jewel and not only my favorite Boo Radleys album (Eight is in second place) but one of my favorite albums over all.

Over the past few days, I’ve been listening to all of this music on shuffle to find the throughline I mentioned in the opening paragraph of this review and it’s more than obvious there are many songs that would fit side by side as examples. But to hear the best of these all you need to do is listen to Eight’s “Sometimes I Sleep” alongside the title song from Kingsize and you’ll hear it too. Welcome back Boos!