Feeling ever more back where they belong as new music and touring announcements detonate love bombs amongst fans old and new, both in the UK and overseas, The Boo Radleys follow up their New Year announcement of a fresh 2023 album and Giant Steps 30th Anniversary reissue and tour with new single – The Unconscious – and news of further tour dates. The second track lifted from the forthcoming, eighth Boos long-player, titled Eight, the full album will be released on Fri 9 June 2023 on the band’s own Boostr label.
Additional live outings come in the form of seven, warmly nostalgic dates on a co-headline trip with legendary John Peel-endorsed Leeds indie titans, Cud, opening in Manchester this autumn and ending with a date at London’s O2 Academy Islington. Tickets are on sale from Fri 24 February 2023.
Wasting barely a beat of the 35th year since forming on the breezy Wirral peninsula as eager noiseniks, The Boo Radleys leapt into action in January to release Seeker, a piano-anchored and brass-laden track in the finest of the band’s philosophical pop traditions. Having used that song to sing about the necessity of human contact, trust and companionship, The Unconscious takes psychology in hand and walks through the avenues and alleyways of the mind.
The intensity felt on their first album after reforming, 2022’s Keep On With Falling, handling the fragility of life and lining peppy Boos pop hooks with threads of contemplative darkness, has been lightened on Eight as the band’s writing has become less insular. Yet, for any promises of levity this time around, the band get deep and the meaningful in The Unconscious, layering the sweet sauce of a perfect, three-minute, ska-indebted indie-pop song onto the bitter dish of mental fragility and physical breakdown.
Co-songwriter and lead singer, Sice a says of the track: “It started with a ska riff and nothing else. The idea was to let it grow without restriction… kind of like opening the unconscious. Lyrically, it details my two-year psychoanalysis, which did not end well.”
Bassist and co-songwriter, Tim Brown adds: “A disco/dub mash up? Brass solo? The song certainly took a few unexpected musical turns on the journey to reaching its final form. Thumping drums and bass drive the song along. Backing vocals lift the bridges, and overlay the choruses.”
Listen to ‘The Unconscious’ – BELOW:
In addition to announcing the release of an eighth Boo Radleys album, the band also announced the release of a lovingly-assembled reissue of their lauded, landmark 1993 album, Giant Steps. Cherished, critically acclaimed and confrontational in its genre-ambiguity, the album will re-emerge on vinyl, CD and digital formats later this year.
To accompany the long-awaited reissue, finally putting the record in fans’ hands who have found valuable second-hand copies out of reach, The Boo Radleys announced that they will play seven dates, performing the majority of Giant Steps in order of its original track listing. An intimate warm-up at Reading’s South Street Arts Centre on Tue 13 June gets proceedings underway.
Having felt the warmth of both fan and critical response to their first tour in almost a quarter of a century last year, the band looks forward to playing the following dates through 2023:
- Tue 13 June – Reading, South Street Arts Centre
- Wed 14 June – London, The Garage
- Thu 15 June – Tunbridge Wells, The Forum
- Fri 16 June – Birkenhead, Future Yard
- Thu 22 June – Dublin, The Grand Social
- Fri 23 June – Belfast, The Limelight
- Sun 25 June – Glasgow, Hug and Pint
- Sat 28 October – Manchester, Bread Shed w/Cud
- Sun 29 October – Liverpool, O2 Academy 2 w/Cud
- Mon 30 October – Sheffield, O2 Academy 2 w/Cud
- Tue 31 October – Birmingham, O2 Institute 2 w/Cud
- Thu 2 November – Bristol, The Fleece w/Cud
- Fri 3 November – Oxford, O2 Academy 2 w/Cud
- Sat 4 November – London, O2 Academy Islington w/Cud
Tickets for all dates can be found via links available at https://www.thebooradleys.com
Having experienced the excesses of Creation Records’ boom through the 1990s, the sweetness and the sting of success of being trapped in the Britpop storm, notably with 1995’s hit single, Wake Up Boo! and their break-up after 1999’s sixth album, Kingsize, The Boo Radleys – now Sice, Brown and drummer, Rob Cieka – work towards a new vision of the band. Whilst no longer a member of the band, the reformed Boos have paid public tribute to the band’s original guitarist and songwriter, Martin Carr, on multiple occasions from the stage during live shows.
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