Giant Steps (30th Anniversary Edition)

The Boo Radleys reveal vinyl reissue to celebrate the 30th anniversary of their nineties genre-hopping masterpiece “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. The band’s genre-ambiguous and widely-acclaimed masterpiece will become available to fans old and new on 1st September 2023 via Two-Piers. Only the second of their five albums to be released on the legendary Creation Records, at a time when label mates including Slowdive, Teenage Fanclub and Ride were also casting long shadows across the indie landscape, pre-the Oasis hurricane making landfall at the label, Giant Steps broke into the canon of great, experimental rock albums soon after its release. It’s first single, Lazarus , issued as a standalone release in November 1992, its blend of brass and guitar-squall and acutely introspective lyrics, gave a hint of what was to come and remains lodged in the band’s most-loved and best-known songs. For the 2023 reissue,
Lazarus’ 12” version appears on the all-formats track listing for the first time.
Recorded at London’s Protocol Studios, where Carr and Brown took on self-production duties with support from engineer, Andy Wilkinson, The Boo Radleys set about responding to their shared sense of dissatisfaction with their 1992 album, Everything’s Alright Forever . Free to do as they please, they set about making a record of complete artistic freedom, bringing in reggae (Upon 9th And Fairchild ), dance (Rodney King ) and irresistible, warped indie pop (Barney And Me ) influences into the studio and, without limitation, weaved them into the satisfyingly complex fabric of Giant Steps. Snapshot incidentals, intermissions and between-radiostation static intro/outros added to the sense of unrestrained exploration.
Writing about the album, drummer, Cieka reflected on Giant Steps , stating: “Creation loved it, people's reactions seemed really positive. I do listen to it from time to time and still find great moments I’d forgotten about. I think it stands up pretty well today. I'm always left feeling happy to have been a part of the record.”