Punker Than You Since '92

Boyracer have been punker than you since '92, if not before, though not in the way you might think. That is, they're not punk because they're wearing the right outfit, clothes-wise or musically. They're punker than you cause they've been following their own path, and winging their way through whatever pop song or feedback squeal they feel the urge to express. By 'they' I mostly mean 'he', since Stewart Anderson is the band's one constant, though everyone else in the band – currently mostly Anderson's wife Jen Turrell – has shared his spunk and independent spirit. Since '92 Boyracer has amassed quite a body of work, an impressive geography of noise and melody and sadness and anger and hope and heartbreak and sweat and some more noise. The two-disc Punker Than You Since '92 (555) gives us 76 – yes, 76 – songs in testament to all of this. It's an exhilarating journey, starting in the present, in Arizona, and working its way back to the early '90s in Leeds, UK. And wrapping it all together, since a fair number of the older tracks were re-recorded in the present by Stewart and Jen, in cases where the rights to the originals weren't theirs, or were unclear. The new versions have the same reckless energy as the originals; no complaints here. They're not a band where you'd complain about that sort of thing, anyway, though. This isn't science, it's rebellion, it's music, it's an adventure. For the same reason, summarizing what songs are here or aren't (and they're mostly here), or recounting dates of what was recorded when, seems fruitless. There's ridiculously rare tracks mixed in with more familiar ones, every step of their career is present, and that's about all you need to keep track of. It's all part of the same stream, anyway, and it's all pretty damn fantastic – as infectious and moving and invigorating as you'd want music to be. If you've miss out on Boyracer, your loss.   (Erasing Clouds)

A Punch Up The Bracket

As hinted at on their recent "Insults & Insights" cdep, the band have been calming down a touch. Not to say that this record still isn't full of 90 second blasts of punky pop (which it certainly is!), but it also has a number of songs like "No Tears" and "The Toilets Of Northern Europe" which are longer and less manic. You'll even find a couple almost purely calm moments in "Perennial Underdog" and "Tactile", both of which being the least traditional Boyracer tunes on here, although they do have noisy breaks. Heck, even some of the 90 second tunes are calmer. Like the last several releases, the songs are played primarily by Stew & Jen, although they get some help from longtime 'racers Ara & Chuck, as well as Martin from Javelins. There was only one thing I didn't like about this record: I've always really liked Jen's vocal additions to the songs both for lead and backing, but during a couple songs on this album, she's taken to screaming, and I gotta tell you - it doesn't work. Still, I think this is their best record in recent years. MTQ=18/21   (IndiePages)

Happenstance

Well, it should come to no surprise to anyone reading this that I think this record is absolutely fantastic! One of my all-time favorite bands, Boyracer have been putting out quality noise-pop records for over ten years, and this is certainly no exception to that rule! This is very similar to their last album, "To Get A Better Hold You've Got To Loosen Yr Grip", both in feel and sound. Like that record, most of the instruments are played by Stew and Jen (including the surprise appearance by piano in a couple songs!), but there are fewer other musicians on here; for example, Ara, who's been a member of the band since their comeback a few years ago, only appears on one track(which he co-wrote). The songs are still all around one or two minutes long, with lots of catchy melodies, speedy tempos and Stew's frequently spiteful lyrics, and there are many classics on here, including "The Warmest Hours", "Where To Place Your Trust?", "Christopher" and the super-short "I Thought Even More Of You When You Told Me You Wanted Me Dead". Only one cover this time around: a version of "The Others' Way", which actually already appeared on the "Acoustically Yours" cassette last year. A fine band in top form! MTQ=22/23   (IndiePages)

Boyracer's punk (in manner and attitude, not style) approach to catchy, melodic pop is as fresh on their new album Happenstance as it ever was. The Boyracer discography is deep, but their recent releases, like their great last album To Get a Better Hold You've Got To Loosen Yr Grip, have sounded particularly streamlined and energetic. Happenstance is no exception - from the opening razor-sharp guitar riffs that turn into clouds of fuzz, through to the typically feedback-soaked ending. 'Anyone can pick up a guitar and play' is their ethos, yet Stewart Anderson, who stands at the center of Boyracer, has a supreme gift at melody to match his ragged individualism. He has an awkwardly beautiful singing voice, matched nicely in places with backing vocals from the band's other central member Jen Turrell. Every super-catchy song holds within its tune a heart and a sincere rebelliousness - Boyracer's both bitter and hopeful, pissed-off and romantic. The songs are smothered in brillant feedback much of the time, though here and there the noise vanishes to spotlight how pretty the melodies and words can be ("The Moment" is a gem), or things slow down with gentle piano. 23 songs in 37 minutes is how they do it. "Don't lose your ideals!", they proclaim in one song, and I'm glad they haven't. Happenstance is right up there with their most consistent records, pretty and punk through and through.   (Erasing Clouds)

Check Yr Fucking Hi$tory

boyracer, still the prefects of the pop punk perfect, whose labours have been in danger of giving "indie" a good name for so long now. following the treats of their "girlracer" set earlier in 2003, which found them revisiting classic female-singer choons from yesteryear, the racer switch back into originals mode with a new five-track ep of pace, poise, pace, power and er, more pace. in a year where despite the raging eclecticism of the south london streets nothing remotely describable as *punk* has peeped above the parapet to truly wow us (though an ongoing battle for supremacy at ilwtt towers continues with some animated discussions of the merits of the last conflict single), it's heartening to hear that boyracer remain as lithe, spirited and goddamn stubborn as ever. just to prove the point, this ep starts with a real trio con brio - "you've squandered yr talents", "new plastic" and "a history of snakes" are all pristine showroom demos of how stewart anderson and jen turrell are still able to compress emotion, complex rhythms, gnawing lyrics and snippets of really undeniably pretty melodies into blistering pop nuggets of undue haste (none are longer than two minutes and "snakes", like sportique's "stereotype", rightly baulks at going beyond sixty seconds). of this impressive trilogy, the fairly low-maintenance production of which reminds us a little of "songs about frustration and self-hate" all the way back in 1994, "new plastic" is the one that churns us up most, from the moment when stewart sings "i want to spill brilliant words / in the wrong direction" and then proceeds to do just that while guitars clash and chime in and out of key and jen provides a bittersweet vocal counterpoint. the last two songs then decide to push the envelope a little - first, "german boy" is, somewhat wilfully, sung entirely in japanese by a rather enhanced boyracer line-up (stewart and jen standing aside): it's uncontrollably bouncy and indecently loveable, and yes, no more than ninety seconds long. and then the ep culminates with "when i was a blonde and you a brunette", which first of all is a superb song. secondly, it clocks in at the best part of half an hour, much of which is the sound of feedback dancing in the embers and refusing to fade. before that, neat drumming and high bass trace out another tale of human disdain and timewasting, the guitars chuckling and gurgling like they did on "frustration"'s epic closer "second is always second" and pincer movements of surrounding feedback closing in for the kill while stewart warns his listeners "you will sell yourself short". luckily, that's something that boyracer remain implacably incapable of doing.   (In Love With These Times)

One of my all-time favorite bands, I'm so glad to see Boyracer actively making records again. This (along with the "Acoustically Yours" cassette) is their first release since last spring's "Girlracer" split ep with Kanda, but there's promise of a new full length (and hopefully much more!) soon. This release may not be completely solid, but the first three songs, "You've Squandered Yr Talents", "New Plastic" and "A History Of Snakes", are all as completely brilliant as anything else in the massive 'racer catalog of songs. Unfortunately, the other two songs aren't as good. "German Boy" features a Japanese guest vocalist that sounds like a 7 year old boy on helium (and I don't mean that in a good way!) and "When I Was A Blonde And You A Brunette" starts off good for a few minutes, then chugs along for a few more minutes before giving way to 20+ minutes of feedback. And while I do love feedback as much as the next guy (more, probably), this does seem a bit excessive... MTQ=3/5   (IndiePages)

Acoustically Yours

and here's your final treat this year, this being the best cassette release of 2003, and indeed probably of this young century. 22 tracks, some new and some old favourites, giving you a chance to dust off the old-style walkman and wander round the flat in rapt admiration of the songwriting side of flagstaff's finest. eleven-a-side (like the best things in life we were discussing earlier), side one concentrates on a torrent of demos and unreleaseds, peaking with a loving cover of the double happys' "the others way" , while side two focuses on a number of alternate takes of racer classics, plus material culled from a live -and gloriously non-unplugged - radio session in the states ("doorframe" fans will be particularly enamoured, as after its criminal omission from their "greatest hits", we get an early demo plus a fantastic full-band feedback version of the greatest love song - "i guess i just want you to notice me" - the brothers reid never wrote). the whole exercise confirms what we were hinting all the way up top - that just like the mary chain, boyracer have always been about melodies as well as the noise and angst that tend to supplement the writers' art so well. and hearing the original demo of "two" ("you have friends around you / when you have friends, you're the richest person in town") was definitely sufficiently precious for the old heart to skip a few beats. you can't beat nostalgia when the music you're still longing for really was that good.   (In Love With These Times)

To Get A Better Hold You've Got To Loosen Yr Grip

This reviewing stuff in double hits lark makes things easier for everyone, except perhaps you, dear reader. So if it's confusing you and making you feel like throwing your Apple Cinemascope 46" monitor out of your elegant Art Nouveau plate glass window with rage and determination, I can only apologise. Or maybe you just have to think outside the box, huh?

Anyway. Enough of the confrontation already. Boyracer remind me of my old extreme indie cute pop days, when I'd eagerly sit by the postbox waiting for the latest release by the Fat Tulips, Bouquet, Bulldozer Crash or that Brighter flexi with the hand-painted paper bag sleeve. Ah, happy days, and so many 7"s in plastic bags to remind me. It's not even like Boyracer were one of them cutie kid bands, as except for the Sarah Records connection, they were like proper punk fucking rock to my young, impressionable ears. 'Bsides and Besides' is therefore designed for losers like me, being a collection of old/rare/live/alternate things which may or may not have once come out on a variety of compilation tapes, singles, flexis, wax cylinders, etc. (And it includes a live version of 'Bitter' which I once released on a compilation tape, fact fans, but do I get a credit for my part in their fame? Do I heck. I know I forgot to send the £3.40 royalty cheque, but - like - really.) The Boyracer of old were quite ramshackle and veered between heartfelt acoustic-ish songs to noisy feedback chaos, all held together (in general) by Stewart Anderson's (who is also Steward, fact fans) straining, I-mean-this voice.

But what of the Boyracer of modern times, you ask?

Well, that's where 'To get a better hold you've got to loosen your grip' comes in. For this is a NEW album! For those of you who thought the 'Racer had split up, well, apparently not, they're now some kind of globetrotting supergroup (my CDs came to me from the USA, with an Australian return address) with a lot of new members and a new shape of CD packaging in full effect (it's origami gone clever). The new Boyracer still feature the distinctive and somewhat-more-breathy voice of Mr Anderson, welded to a clean, fast, sharp, efficient non-noisy-punk sound (if you get what I'm saying). 22 tracks in around 35 minutes, now that's brevity! I think. It's all super-tuneful, not in the least bit boring or repetitive, and the songs whip by at such a pace that you can't do anything but smile like a goon at the fact that they made these songs just for YOU. Plus, my CD (although I can't speak for them all) came with a free 5" vinyl record! So it fits into the CD packaging!

Now, that's progress.   (Diskant)

Boyracer are my favourite band because their frantic, high-power fuzz pop hearkens back to one's sordid youth; an era fraught with 3 a.m. diners, accidental haircuts, sublime disappointments and brain cells lost in the ether. Oh, nostalgia, up yours!

For a while there it looked like Boyracer was dust. Dormant for five years, ebullient front man Stewart Anderson was often found reminiscing about the glorious 90s: "Boyracer was an insanely fun band to be in. When we got it right it was great, and when we didn’t we just laughed at ourselves." But ask Stewart and he’ll tell you, five years is a lifetime. He fell in love with an American girl named Jen (Turrell, Red Square Records chief), flung her a wedding band and a bass guitar (it was considerably more romantic than this) then hustled the troops back together.

'To get a better hold you've got to loosen yr grip' is an invigorating return to form. Boyracer 2002 is as noisy and melodic as ever, but now there is love in the guitars. Even when they're spawning feral masses of feedback, there is love.

Since 1990, over twenty members have walked among Boyracer's hallowed halls. From small beginnings in Leeds, finding love in Philadelphia, to a recent residency in Melbourne, Boyracer have accumulated more frequent flyer points than your average indie rock band.

Not that homelessness or the revolving carousel of members has softened the edge. The first track off the new one makes this very clear. Clocking in at 1 minute and 9 seconds, Sarah and Sarah boasts its trademark buzz as Stewart bolts around his Northern England roots with desperate angst. "Pin all your hopes on a Saturday night, this town's a joke and that's what saddens me", pleads Stewart, like Morissey, but with nuts in a vice.

Following the fuzzed-out, bass blitz of 'They're making money off you', Jen has a go, singing a sweet and heavenly version of The Primitives’ 'Nothing Left'. Then there’s the marvelous 'Glitter' where Stewart comforts a friend "a closed door, a hidden secret from friends who let you down". It's obvious this friend needs a change of scenery. So while the percussion booms and the guitars craft a perfect, jangling melody, Stewart suggests to his lugubrious pal that they make a special effort on the town. We can put on our glitter clothes/ and we will glow with ease, he sings, reassuringly.

Elsewhere, there's a deeply twisted love song Stewart wrote about the razor his girlfriend gave him, "cut my face up something bad/ I did this to be near you". My current favourite is track 19, 'Priorities' with a guitar riff that would singe the fringe of postpunks Echo and the Bunnymen. The song contains the classic lines, "Are you still trying to fool yourself he's an OK guy?/ Is he still ruining your artrock band?"

Without a doubt, trust and friendship are a recurring theme in Boyracer’s music. As Stewart mentions on the 33-track retro-explosion Boyfuckingracer: "Dumb punk rock and my friends are still important to me".   (Shane Moritz)

OK, now the reformation of any once-quality combo is beset with dangers. Symptoms in reviewers include wary expectation, eager anticipation, and in the case of returns of original punk icons, something akin to primal fear (mixed with a soupçon of cringing embarrassment). However, Boyracer's new album is their most coherent work: they had after all been getting pretty close to the modern epitome of punk/pop fusion in the non-experimental half of their "In Full Colour" set before they kind of fizzled out with the unobtrusive "Perfect Tense" 7" in 1997. Now that's been exposed as a false ending, the boy racer (Stewart Anderson aka Steward) has decided to resurrect the group, with wife Jen Turrell on bass, and Ara Hacopian (lately the 5th member of the Saturday People, we seem to recall) providing the extra layer of guitar on more raucous numbers.

To those of you who never really bought into the Boyracer thing - possibly you remember their early flexis, and recall wondering what the hell they were doing signing to Sarah, before you kind of got distracted by britpop or something - well for us, Boyracer cemented their reputation with the Sarah A sides "I've Got It and It's Not Worth Having" and "He Gets Me So Hard", but their main attraction to us has always been that they had something to say (largely on the personal / political level), and they were prepared to say it with feedback. We guess it was possibly Wire who first realised, with "Pink Flag", that there wasn't much point in playing songs that lasted 3 minutes unless you had 3 minutes' worth to say - best just dive in, say what you gotta say and wind proceedings up pretty smartly, and if you do that in 70 or 80 seconds, as Boyracer often do, so much the better. It's a market in which Boyracer have traded admirably with past classix like "Small Consolation", "West Riding House" and "Your Secret Desires", and there are plenty of golden nods to that tradition here in standouts like "Sarah and Sarah", "Temper" (the alternate take at #21 being even better), "Tell Me Where My Hands Should Go" (an exemplary lust song) and "Nostalgic For a Time I Hardly Remember", during which not only does the phone appear to ring, but I'm damn sure that this time the screech at the end isn't feedback, but the sound of a kettle boiling. There's also a new and improved version of "Razor", originally previewed on "Boyfuckingracer". All the songs gleefully run into each other, too, one scratchy thrash bumper-to-bumper pranging into the next - no respectful Radio 3 silences here.

"I lost a day / but gained so much more..."

There are a few necessary deviations from the Boyracer formula, although none of the Famous Boyfriend collaborative experiments that perhaps unsettled the flow of "In Full Colour". Of these, track 10 is the best answer phone track since the Beatnik Filmstars' "Phone Kids": let's just say it has the desired effect. And former B.F. Andrew Jarrett is indeed in the area, responsible for recording some of these tiny gems onto 8-track. Occasional guitarist and "classic line up" member Matt Green also plays on his own composition, "Matty's Untitled Song" (shades of "Billy's Third" ?) which does enough in its 45 seconds to keep his forthcoming solo album (as "The Tall Boy", in which guise he's already impressed us) firmly in mind. And there are a trio of covers to provide (a little) tone and contrast - the Primitives' "Nothing Left" is done in fine style, with Jen Turrell's vocal recalling the cuteness of early Tracy Tracy; the Marine Girls' "In Love" (such a shame when you think of Tracey Thorn now that aberration "missing" always seems to lodge in mind) is charmingly rendered, the best part being in the chorus with Stewart saying "I hear you're..." and then as the guitar really kickstarts he adds / yelps "IN LOVE!!" - it's faithful to the childlike allure of the original. "Come Out 2 Nite" is more an affectionate interpretation, not really being a patch on the original but at least reminding us how Kenickie's potential was never realised... these cover versions, tending as they do to (gasp!) exceed the two-minute mark, seem quite epic, surrounded as they are by Boyracer's homegrown short sharp shocks.

It's always a factor that Stewart's lovelife - or at least certain episodes from it - is now an open canvas thanks to previous recorded confessionals. While this doesn't put Boyracer quite in the league of J-Lo, Cris Judd and Puff Daddy - thank goodness - like so many of those Field Mice and Trembling Blue Stars songs, it adds an extra edge in listening to the records as you try and guess who they're about. Listening to "Priorities" (another office recommendation), following some of the harrowing revelations of steward's "Horselaugh on My Ex", you're in no doubt as to who the song is about; equally one would assume that "Every Day is Christmas with You" ("don't let me become immune to such beauty ...") is aimed at Jen: like any decent romantic cadeau, Stewart is responsible for putting the whole thing together. You can almost imagine him presenting her the master tape, gift wrapped, with boyish pride. My favourite lyrics on the album are actually "Grand Rapids", but whenever Boyracer slow down these days, comparisons with Steward's solo material are bound to surface, and they can't always be flattering. You wonder what such touching, homely phrases ("sat outside in the freezing snow / in the dead of night / my coat on / my hood up / all alone...") could do to you if they were part of the Steward montage of samples and fluffy electronica.

Still relevant, then.   (unknown)

"To Get a Better Hold" is tied with Guided by Voices' "Universal Truths and Cycles" as best rock album of the year. This is the best Boyracer album ever. Considering that most of it was recorded on eight-track, the production is MUCH better than any of their other full-lengths. EVERY song kills rules owns, but particular favorites are "Temper (version)", "Glitter", "Matty's Untitled Song", "Priorities", and "Everyday is Christmas With You". "Everyday is Christmas" kinda sounds like the Flaming Lips, and would have made a great closer if it weren't for the two songs after it... The lyrics are great; pardon me if I'm making assumptions, but it seems that Stewart is still smarting from previous betrayals, but still looking forward and making the best of his new life...which makes "To Get a Better Hold" not only a progression musically, but emotionally. I also like the photos of sonic destruction that pepper the booklet. I could go on and on but I'll stop here 'cause I've got to listen to "B-sides and Besides" now...   (Sean Padilla)

I could've written this review without even listening to the cd, but I've already listened to it seven times this week, so it's too late for that, I guess. Okay, you already know that Boyracer is the best noise-pop band that's ever existed, right? Well, this is their best album yet. Basically, we've already got the most likely candidate for number one record of the year. There is absolutely nothing bad I can say about this record, from the cool quick-handed jangling in "Glitter" to the fast-paced time changes in "Sarah And Sarah" to the great interplay between acoustic and squealy electric guitars in "Tell Me Where My Hands Should Go", everything about this record is awesome. Some of the record is full band lineup (Jen Turrell on bass, Ara Hacopian on guitar, and Frankie on drums) and some is Stew and Jen, or just Stew playing everything. There are guests galore on this record, including Mike Slumberland, Tim and Donna of Lunchbox, and even older Boyracers Matty and Ged! This record has everything from the noisy tracks we all expect from Boyracer to lo-fi acoustic tunes (including two acoustic versions of songs earlier in the record). And there are three covers on this record: a totally noisy Marine Girls cover ("In Love"), a spot-on cover of the Primitives' "Nothing Left", and a fun cover of "Come Out 2nite" from Kenickie. And all this action in 35½ minutes! Words can't express how happy I am that Boyracer are back and recording new material, so I will just continue listening to this record daily for the next several months. MTQ=22/22   (IndiePages)

Boyracer is one of the favourites of the house. And It's Not Worth Having "and" He Gets hears the HITS "I've Got It Me So Hard", both sides of classics singles of the Sarah Records, and discovers because. Urgent and melódico Fuzz-pop of the best quality. Despite the band having done "fame" in the Sarah, the sound of them does not have nothing of folk sad. The guitars are distorted and dirty, nothing of that distortion light that we find in records of the Leamonheads or same Teenage Fanclub. Here the guitars whistle microvoice for all the pores, a ardida, barulhenta and deafening thing. One I beat in the stomach. E musics have in average one minute and a little be. This record has 22 musics in 35 minutes. Some arrive to be one murro in the face. Boyracer is punk rock PACAS. Generally musics start the trocentos kilometers for the moment, you are paralyzed and boquiaberto and when if little wait music finishes and you there, motionless, without reaction, almost chokeing, with difficulty to even breathe. Not by chance they botam some musics acoustics in the way it record. In case that contrary, neguinho is in danger to have an infarct. This is the record in return of the Boyracer. They had started in the beginning of years 90 in Leeds, England. They had made fame launching compact FULL of hits noise-pop for diverse recorders (the discografia is enormous) and has five years behind the band finished. Last year was launched "Boyfuckingracer", one best of with 33 musics (this was one of records that more heard in 2001) that the return of the band prenunciava. "You the Get the Better Hold You've Got you the Loosen Yr Grip" is the record that marks this return, full of new compositions. Boyracer in the truth is Steward, the only original member of the band, responsible for the majority of the compositions and owner of 555 recorder Recordings and quaint an alone career lo-fi. In one of its turnês for America, it it knew Jen Turrell, owner of recorder Red Square and in such a way quaint an alone career lo-fi nor. They say that it was immediate passion. Since the event, the two had not broken up more. When it is not in U.S.A., is it who goes until England. In these, they had decided to reactivate the Boyracer, thus the two can touch and journey together. Jen Turrell assumes the rank of ready stock exchange operator and. Simple. Generally in the writings the multi-instrumentista Steward touches the remain of the instruments, but it is not rule. In this album we have diverse musicians participating. Musics of the Boyracer are all recorded ones in a portable studio of 8 canals. They are coarse, lo-fi pacas, but nothing that a fan of Sebadoh already does not know. The description funnier than I read was in e-zine Furia, where was said that Boyracer is as a Alec Empire without the robots. In the truth the Boyracer is much more melódico of that any Digital thing Hardcore, but the chaos, the extreme racket, the dirt, the total unconcern to sound certinho, this we find in both. In this album we have HITS noise-pop (at least 80%) intercalated by acoustic and electronic numbers. Steward likes to play with computers to make music and of time in when it until it makes right (to the times it is very experimental, mainly in its alone career). Valley to say that the voice of Steward is so peculiar as of David Gedge of the Wedding Present or same Mark And Smith of the Fall. Cause estranhamento in a first hearing, but nothing very chocking. We have three covers: "Nothing Left" of the Primitives, with Jen in the vocal ones, "In Love" of the Marine Girls (daily pay-Everything but the Girl) and "Eats Out 2Nite" of the Kenickie. All excellent ones and adapted to the peculiar Boyracer style of if making musics. I am trying to enumerate some prominences to facilitate to the search in the Soulseek, but tá difficult. All are legal. Good, Sarah tries "and Sarah", "Temper", "Priorities", "Matty's Untitled Song" and if to like catches the remaining portion all because it is so good how much. In the Real I find that all would have to catch the same COMPACT DISC, therefore nor I am so expensive, the postagem I must leave less one dollar (it comes in a cardboard packing) and encarte I have the letters and diverse photos, amongst them some where they I am breaking all instruments in top of palco, passing the image of that Boyracer to the living creature must be CHAOTIC.   (Esquizofrenia Zine)

Boyfuckingracer

Boyracer are the band that changed indie music for me. No other group has inspired as much fanaticism from me as this band has. They were an instant favorite from the very first moment I heard the "B Is For Boyracer" 7" in 1993. Not long after, I got the "AUL 36X" 7" and almost immediately called Mike Schulman to quiz him on this amazing band. Since then, I've flown to England to see them play, put out a Boyracer single on Jigsaw, and collected every single release, compilation, and fanzine I could find. It was quite sad to see them part ways in 1996 - it wasn't the same without a new Boyracer single every few months. But now they've reunited (hopefully for good?), and to commemorate the occasion, they've released this 33-track "best of" compilation, and embarked on a 2-month tour across the US (which just ended). This release is mainly meant for newer fans, to educate the masses who missed Boyracer the first time around, but it also has 1 new song recorded specially for this comp, and alternate versions of a few old favorites (West Riding House, Vitamin B & False Economy) for the diehard fans. And, though I love just about every 'racer song, this is a really good approximation of their "hits", with the only glaring omission being "Doorframe" (surely a mistake?). I also enjoy the annotated song list, though I do wish there were more information. Be on the lookout for a rarities compilation that's supposed to appear soon... MTQ=33/33   (IndiePages)

Boyracer: Boyfuckingracer, an astoundingly good retrospective of antisingles from the band that was once (I swear) the only worthwhile thing in England-now they're based in Philadelphia and are still heirs to the Jesus and Mary Chain school of great hooks buried under marbles-in-a-blender feedback.   (Comfusion)

This compilation of singles, news and scarcities presents the best of Boyracer since 1990... The sound is not always very good but the disc overflows of all the energy which the current pop noisy could have our youth. One finds oneself quickly in the cassette compilations, with songs full with awkwardnesses but so much attraction. 4 for the disc + 0.5 for nostalgia:) It misses 0.5 of coherence between the pieces to reach the perfection. go hop I it réecoute! (04/07/02)   (Tatapoum.com)