An album hugely in demand and sounding absolutely fantastic at thirty years old! We’re delighted to bring you a special archive pressing of The Boo Radleys’ “Giant Steps“. NME’s 1993 Album Of The Year, named in the Top 20 of Pitchfork’s The 50 Best Shoegaze Albums of All Time and lauded as one of 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, The Boo Radleys’ classic album, “Giant Steps” will be reissued, on special remastered vinyl almost 30 years to the day since its original release.
“Giant Steps” is the third studio album by the Boo Radleys, released in 1993. The title is inspired by John Coltrane’s album of the same name, and the record features an assortment of influences — their previous shoegazing sound backed by pop, reggae, noise pop and orchestral sounds.
The band’s genre-ambiguous and widely-acclaimed masterpiece will become available to fans old and new.
The Boo Radleys’ songwriter/guitarist, Martin Carr, named his band’s 1993 album after John Coltrane’s 1959 LP, but “Giant Steps” also is a winking acknowledgment of another kind: He’s the first to know that the Liverpool quartet has taken a huge leap forward. Although they hardly renounce the thunderous swirl and delicate suspension of 1992’s “Everything’s Alright Forever“, the Boo Radleys treat that candied rush as an absorbed language, with Carr choosing to pursue a grand vision that unifies psychedelia, British guitar-pop, jazz, and dub.
Part of the appeal of “Giant Steps” is that the Boo Radleys’ enthusiasm leads them to attempt fusions that would scare away other bands: Witness “Lazarus,” which begins with an elastic reggae beat before becoming consumed by sheets of guitars, wispy harmonies, and stabs of brass. “Lazarus” is essentially “Giant Steps” in microcosm, but the album gains strength through its own untrammeled ambition. At the dawn of britpop, the Boo Radleys chose expanding consciousness over provincial patriotism, and the results are still majestic.
The Fat Angel Sings 