Artvoice: Buffalo's #1 Newsweekly
Home Blogs Web Features Calendar Listings Artvoice TV Real Estate Classifieds Contact
Previous story: A BPO Christmas & A Polyphonic Debut
Next story: Q-Tip - The Renaissance

Razorlight - Slipway Fires

RAZORLIGHT
Slipway Fires
Mercury

Razorlight is just about the biggest band in England, but they can’t get arrested on this side of the ocean. In some ways, that’s completely understandable. Singer/songsmith Johnny Borrell brandishes that certain clever British taste for circumspect grandiosity that doesn’t always easily make fans in North America. He’s like some kind of latter-day Bryan Ferry, who wants to be the center of the show but is conscious that he simply shouldn’t be that kind of spectacle. While it’s his job to be at the center of this rock circus, it’s as if he is making the best of being in wrong place. Borrell took this fish-out-of-water character and made his role work on the band’s first two records. On Razorlight’s debut Up All Night, he was the buzzed but mirthful narrator left glaring into a set of rock-and-roll eyes. On the band’s America-obsessed, self-titled second record, he was lost in a land he didn’t understand but was completely high on, while the band drafted a perfect backdrop of pop, soul, and rock to back his musings.

Ah, but that difficult third record! With two smash hits—in the UK anyway—Borrell and Razorlight are in that difficult spot where they must stay fresh but maintain a certain level of success. That’s why Slipway Fires is a letdown. It’s almost a maintenance record. It not only takes no chances but is stripped of the charms that made previous efforts so good. The puffed-up piano balladry of the subpar and hollow first single, “Wire to Wire,” would make even the lads of Coldplay puke. It gets more embarrassing: the silly “Tabloid Lover,” the hollow navel-gazing relationship drama “Singer,” and the overly emotional but completely dull piano and vox closer “The House.” It was understandable that this band was too English, too cool and sharp, to find widespread success in the US. Slipway Fires finds the band still failing to connect on these shores, except this time it has little to do with being too cool or sharp. There are bright spots like “Burberry Blue Eyes” whose vivacious pop edge makes it feel like a hangover from the much better second album. As Borrell channels a Dylan vibe on the at least moderately interesting “60 Thompson,” I can only hope that Razorlight gets back on track the fourth time around.

donny kutzbach

blog comments powered by Disqus