Boo

This eponymous release is Boo’s first album. The presence of a cellist (Rale’s Andrea Konstankiewicz) in the lineup gives the music a distinctive Czech rock sound, as do the angular, avant-prog rhythms that guitarist Josef Ostransky imported from his previous high-profile group, Dunaj. Yet Boo’s music forays much closer to British alternative rock than most of the roster on the Czech label Indies. The fact that Christoph Pajer sings mostly in English (plus a touch of French and German) has much to do with this impression, but the quartet also rocks more straightforwardly. Early Radiohead and even Blur creep into the mind of the listener at times. Tracks such as “Coffee” and “Don’t Touch It” sound like a slightly more radio-friendly version of Dunaj or Uz Jsme Doma, while “Picture,” “Lies,” and the bleak “Dream” could have had a chance on American alt-rock radio stations. The beauty of it all resides in the fact that each track, no matter how accessible it may seem, hides at least a little quirk — it can be a strange guitar solo, an unexpected development, or distortion in the cello, turning it into an unusual force. Nevertheless, the songs tend to rely on riffs more than on melodies, making them forgettable. The group’s follow-up, Listen (2002, Indies), is more polished and satisfying. – François Couture