Wake Up! brought
the Boo Radleys pop success that they weren't sure what to do with. After embracing the album's number one success, the group eventually recoiled from the spotlight and
Martin Carr wrote
C'mon Kids as a direct response to the group's celebrity status in the U.K. Simply put,
C'mon Kids is an attempt to scare away any of the fellow travelers who welcomed the sunny-sounding pop of
Wake Up! It's a gnarled, twisted, and distorted album, as dense as
Giant Steps and as loud as
the Boos' early EPs. And, if you can make it through the murky guitars, fragments of songs, altered vocals, and tape effects, some melodies and creatively crafted songs make the album nearly as rewarding as
Giant Steps or
Wake Up! It takes time to get into
C'mon Kids, though. At first, it's disarming to hear Sice scream his vocals and
the Boos play heavy riffs. After a while the melodies begin to reveal themselves, as do the clever song structures and inversions of the band's psychedelic hooks and folk tendencies.
C'mon Kids might not be as accessible as even
Giant Steps, but it displays a feverish sense of purpose and a perverse willfulness to refashion their sound, making it an easy album to admire, if not love. [The deluxe edition released in 2010 adds new liner notes and a second disc that has all the tracks from the many singles released alongside the album. A mixed bag of good and inessential remixes, throwaway songs, and some material good enough to feature on the album, the extra disc is worth hearing if you're a fan of
C'mon Kids.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine