Whenever I see The Boo Radleys mentioned anywhere it always seems like the album Giant Steps is the one that gets brought up as their masterpiece. I’ve honestly tried a number of times to get into to that album and have never been able to really come to appreciate it as much as apparently the critics do. I’d like to think I’m missing something in it, really I would, but I just have trouble hearing it. If someone were to ask me what my favorite Boo Radleys album is, along with what I think their best album is, I would have to tell them that it’s Everything’s Alright Forever. I’m not going to act like no one else feels the same way, because I’ve seen my fair share of Everything’s Alright Forever supporters; however it seems on the bigger level of professional critical opinion that this album just doesn’t really get a glowing review the majority of the time.

Everything’s Alright Forever often gets slammed a bit for being a My Bloody Valentine knockoff, which is partly true. I won’t lie; it does have an obvious affection for Kevin Shields’ signature guitar sound. The thing I don’t like about that criticism though is that the sound isn’t just directly lifted and made to sound the same exact way. The Boo Radleys took the warped sounds of My Bloody Valentine and used them to craft songs that were much more poppy, that of which contained incredibly catchy melodies and hooks. Really, whenever I listen to the album I can’t think of many other bands that really pulled off the whole wall-of-sound deal as well as The Boo Radleys did on this album. They really had discovered a good balance between being explosively noisy and at other times being completely serene and dreamlike. While the album definitely leans more towards the shoegaze side of things, it also makes for a solid pop album as well. If anything check out the song “Firesky” and listen to the guitar effects in it. Simply amazing.

The Boo Radleys – Memory Babe [MP3]
The Boo Radleys – Does This Hurt? [MP3]
The Boo Radleys – Firesky [MP3]

While Everything’s Alright Forever is out of print from what I can tell, it’s still readily available used at Amazon. Check around, and pick up this album if you’ve never heard it. It’s definitely one of the most underrated shoegaze albums and should be a classic.