Coming in right on the beat and burning through any vapours of indecision to reach another three-minute blast of inch-perfect, beneath-skin-seeping indie pop music in the best of their long traditions, The Boo Radleys release their latest slice of new music - Now That’s What I Call Obscene. The single’s happy-go-lucky-beat and sunny day melodies leave ajar another window onto their eighth album, Eight, released on Fri 9 June 2023 on their Boostr label, yet the sugar-sweet sounds are, once again, laced with the acid tang of discontent as the band takes on the world’s haters and hypocrites.
Looking ahead to two separate tours this year, one focused on the music of their feted 1993 album, Giant Steps, as they look back for it’s 30th Anniversary, in June and another in October and November alongside friends and contemporaries, Cud, the renewed sense of energy around the band and reawakened enthusiasm of their fans is palpable as another year in The Boo Radleys’ four-decade history progresses nicely.
Not letting nostalgia get in the way, Now That’s What I Call Obscene is a song for the present, drawing both on the band’s world-wary and world-weary observations of the division and scorn cast on easy targets by the powerful and ignorant. A wise prophecy in disguise, the covert message comes coated in typical Boos radio-friendly melodies, Simon ‘Sice’ Rowbottom’s instantly recognisable, welcoming vocals and thumping sway-along percussion making for a searching listen to uncover the track’s truths.
Sice says of the track: “This one’s a fury filled rant against the hypocrisy of ideologies and religions that find armed conflict and violence morally acceptable, but the idea of homosexuality abhorrent. It’s possibly one of the poppiest things on the album and the duality of this, and the fury of the words, hold together like a Mexican standoff.”
Tim Brown, bassist and co-producer, says of the song: “It’s been firm favourite from first hearing. The lively chorus is offset by a rhythmically diverse and bombastic verse. Sice’s vocal soars above the music to deliver his message.”
The band started 2023 by releasing Seeker, their first new music since the release of their warmly received, first album in almost a quarter of a century, 2022’s Keep On With Falling. Finding a new phase of prolificacy after being apart since their initial split in 1999, they showed more of what their fast follow-up, eighth long-player has to offer with The Unconscious in February, a track which formed an outlet of deeply personal reflection for Sice, dealing as it did with his experiences of psychoanalysis.
With September’s 2023 all-formats reissue of acclaimed, genre-indistinct early-90’s classic album, Giant Steps being the focus of their first run of tour dates, The Boo Radleys look ahead to and intimate warm-up date at Reading’s South Street Arts Centre on Tue 13 June to open their live account for the year.
Seven dates in June are devoted to the album with some greatest hits promised, whilst newly announced dates in October and November, with friends and John Peel-endorsed 90’s indie titans, Cud, promise a career-spanning set. All of The Boo Radleys’ live dates for 2023 currently announced and on sale are as follows:
- 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