Only the hardcore hear the entreaty

"C'mon kids", entreated The Boo Radleys on their fifth album of the same name. But it seems the kids did not listen, and the band's gig at the Olympia last Friday was a far cry from the jolly days of Wake Up Boo!.

Only the hardcore Boo fans seemed to be present and correct, but they still leapt to attention when the band's Big Pop Hit burst out of the p.a. like a loved up call to arms.

The Liverpool band have deliberately dumped the trumpeted up sound which finally got them into the Top Ten after years of skulking around in the outer fringes of Britpop, and they've returned to the warped indie style which won them a strident cult following on albums like Giant Steps.

They've had their taste of chart nirvana, and it didn't agree with them, so they've once again taken a neat sidestep and come up with their best work to date.

They're also performing better than ever, which makes it doubly a shame that their audience has dwindled back to cult levels.

As they belted out the title track to the current album, The Boo Radleys sounded tighter than ever - and also louder than bombs.

Martin Carr's guitar feed back was ferocious and frenzied, and the voice of Sice, usually rather weedy and weak onstage, was like a roaring rush of vocal commitment.

The erstwhile Eggman wore a woolly hat which covered up his trademark shiny pate. But if his delivery could be compared to a domestic animal then it would be a great big hairy Dulux dog.

Meltin's Worm is out and out psychedelia, a strange, hallucinatory fable with a wriggle in the tail, but Wake Up Boo! sends a sudden surge of light into those darker corners of the subconscious.

The Boo's trumpet player gives it plenty of parp and ceremony, blowing a fresh breeze into this silly old tune, and when he brings out the brass again for the Biblical reggae of Lazarus, we're sucked into another dimension altogether.

There are quieter moments, such as the pensive From The Bench At Belvedere, the despondent but defiant Everything Is Sorrow, and the current minor hit, Ride The Tiger.

But for the most part it's an unremitting sonic tide the compressed guitars roaring in your head like an electrified wash of current.

What's In The Box? is a thumping blockbuster of raucous riffs and rattling drums, while Get On The Bus lets off the brakes and charges into a straight ahead rhythm.

Find The Answer Within is one of The Boos' less successful attempts at cracking the commercial conundrum, but Stuck On Amber melts all resistance with a searing, volcanic ending.

C'mon back, Kids, there's plenty of room left on the Boos' bus.