Ballboy - All The Records On The Radio Are Shite

  by Tommy Gunnarsson

published: 22 / 2 / 2002

Label: SL
Format: CDS

intro

Fourth EP from Edinburgh indiepop stars, which ,while it is not able to live up to the very high expectaions of its predecessors, still makes essential listening

So, it’s finally here. The new ballboy EP. I have actually been waiting for this very moment since 'Girls Are Better Than Boys', their last EP was released last year. OK, we got the full length album 'Club Anthems 2001' in-between, but there were only two new songs on that one. Here though we have four new songs from the pen of Gordon McIntyre and his three bandmates, and I can’t really say that I’m disappointed. The fact is though that it’s isn’t as brilliant as the first three EPs. The first song, which is also the title track, could actually be mistaken for a Hefner song, if it wasn’t for Gordon’s vocals. They have even added a trombone, courtesy of Anna Claybourne, to make it a stompy little song, and it’s a great one too. As usual Gordon writes lyrics that touches your heart on many levels, and you can’t help but wonder if he is ironic or not when he sings “all the records on the radio are shite / except mine”. The next track is 'Stars & Stripes', a song ballboy played at a Peel Session a year or two ago. It’s still a great song, and represents ballboy’s more melancholic side, a side that usually gets half of the tracks of their EP’s. Guess what? It’s the same on this one. 'Building For The Future' is the second “fast” song here, and it’s also the first to feature the voice of keyboard player Katie Griffiths, as she sings back up vocals for Gordon, and it sounds great. Why she hasn’t appeared until now, I just don’t know. Also, we get some violin as well. All in all it’s nice little song, but not one of ballboy’s top five. Even though I must say that it’s hard to get into that top five-list… 'Welcome To The New Year' is just Gordon and his acoustic guitar, and closes the EP in a melancholic manner in the same style as 'Olympic Cyclist' on the 'I Hate Scotland' EP. It actually sounds a bit like that one too. Of course it’s good, even very good, but as I said before, this EP is not able to live up to the very high expectations of its predecessors . Those expectations are very, very, very high though, and I guess I would be being unfair if I demanded ballboy to make a record that was able to live up to those. So, this is a great EP, nonetheless.

Track Listing:-