There are comebacks, and there are comebacks.
It was, famously, six almost endless years between The Stone Roses and Second Coming; it was fifteen between The Avalanches’ debut Since I Left You and its follow-up Wildflower, and to cap all that, twenty-one before the members of Ride could be in a room long enough together to record Weather Diaries, their first release since 1996’s Tarantula.
Chances are, if you’ve ever bought one of those Now That’s What I Call Britpop albums in the past for a relative, The Boo Radleys’ Wake Up Boo! was almost certainly side one, track one.
Released at the movement’s apex in 1995, the brassy, happy, catchy anthem inevitably became the quartet’s commercial high watermark. It was also something of a fluke they were never aspirated to repeat, and with 1998’s Kingsize an identity which by collective agreement went into cold storage.
And now they’re back, but not from outer space, without Wake Up’s writer Martin Carr who’s enjoyed a modest solo career since the dissolution and remains out of the picture.
Just Tim Brown (bass/guitar/keyboards), Simon ‘Sice’ Rowbottom (guitar/vocals) and Rob Cieka (drums), the trio returned with the EP A Full Syringe And Memories of You in 2021, a collection of songs which explored metaphysical subjects such as euthanasia and alcoholism, and set up as an intriguing prospect their long form reintroduction.
Only the EP’s title-track makes it onto Keep On With Falling, one which (unofficially anyway) seeks to prove that Carr’s now multi-shouldered former creative responsibilities are nothing of a burden – and the evidence in support of this is often compelling enough.
Opener I’ve Had Enough I’m Out revisits familiar territory by juxtaposing its honeyed, retro indie jangle with, as Sice has explained, lyrics that offer a disavowal of religion, specifically Catholicism: ‘How Many Times/Must I kneel at an altar/That Cost more to build/Than we all have to give’.
This is, refreshingly, a place of unexpected pivots, if not quite as fascinating as 1993’s superb Giant Steps. As an example, not one but two tracks end up with a residual taste of New Order in the ears via the closer Alone Together, while the feeling is even more pronounced on You And Me, whose swooping synths backdrop lyrics overshadowed by the spectre of cancer, but that also embrace hope.
Three-decades-plus of experience means old habits die hard, and the art of sequencing is perhaps even more necessary in the playlist era: with impatience in mind, the pop goodies for fans old and probably still old-ish alike are wisely front loaded.
Turning the jangleometer up to 11, I Say A Lot Of Things piles on the ska-chopping good times, All Along weaves soul psychedelia-lite, but it’s the title-track’s preening Rhodes and pin-sharp harmonies that steal the show, almost lightning striking twice.
Understandably for musicians feeling their way back after more than two decades away, there are things that work, things that almost work, and things that really don’t. The dubby brass of Here She Comes Again ensures that it sits in the second category whilst the meandering rock histrionics of I Can’t Be What You Want Me To Be seem like they’re being forced.
When modern culture seems to erase itself and start again every 72 hours it’s anyone’s guess why you’d want, as a former reluctant pop star, to insert yourself back into this particular matrix.
But Keep On With Falling shows the doubters that there’s at least a few more where Wake Up Boo! came from, even if long term that might not really feel like the point.
