Amazon.co.uk Review
Most bands ripen and transcend their earlier selves, eventually. But for Razorlight the onset of maturity has been particularly rapid. It’s like they got on the bus with their debut
Up All Night, all tight jeans and scrappy attitude, winging a child’s fare and yet by the time they sat down they were in comfy slacks, pulling a financial supplement from their jacket pocket for light reading and asking the kids at the back to pipe down. Their eponymous second record unapologetically disposed of the fervour and sense of place of
Up All Night, pursuing instead a universal sense of melody and more generic themes. It is this vein that they build on with Phase 3, aka
Slipaway Fires, and having already engaged the mainstream, Johnny Borrell now makes a big play to be prompted alongside some of the greats. With the sentimental piano balladry of “Wire to Wire” and “The House” he positions himself between “Don’t Look Back in Anger” and Elton John. On “You & the Rest” and “60 Thompson” he goes after Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan respectively. The eye-openers are exaggerated cliché “Tabloid Lover” which is like The Who, Queen and Roxette forced into a space too small for them all and “Stinger”, arching soft rock ballad with a perm. It’s an ambitious project in advancing the Razorlight template and sometimes it probably pushes too far, but a glimmer remains throughout and
Slipway Fires won’t be the record to halt their ascent.
--James Berry
CD Description
After releasing two of the most popular indie albums of the00s, Razorlight return for their third in the shape of 'Slipway Fires'. Typically dramatic and epic in its expressions,this release is slightly more bombastic than before, and incorporates a rawer, edgier rock dynamic. Recorded after a period of isolation and creative rest, lead singer Johnny Borrell took his band to the Inner Hebrides to fuel the renewed creative process, resulting in this anthemic collection. Features the single 'Wire To Wire'.