Shoes' third and final album for Elektra Records is probably the weakest album of their career. Apparently unsatisfied with the big-league producers who had overseen their first two Elektra albums, the group returned home to Zion, IL, and recorded on their own. However, this album lacks the low-budget charm of early albums like Un Dans Versailles and Black Vinyl Shoes; where those albums burst with invention and overflowed with ideas, Boomerang sounds oddly tentative, as if they're trying not to please themselves, but to please their Elektra A&R representative. The sound is bright almost to the point of tinniness, and their unfortunate flirtation with synthesizers (a fine and noble instrument, but not one that really fits the Shoes sound) that continued on their next two albums begins here. As a result, Boomerang sounds extremely dated in a way that earlier Shoes albums don't. That said, the album does have some fan favorites, including possibly John Murphy's best-ever song, "Too Soon." Early vinyl copies of Boomerang came with a free six-song EP, Shoes on Ice, recorded live before a partisan hometown crowd at the Zion Ice Hockey Arena. These songs were later added to the CD reissue of Boomerang on Shoes' own Black Vinyl Records.