Search - Razorlight :: Razorlight (Bonus Dvd)

Cracker Borrell

The Wasp | Australia | 08/10/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"When Pete Doherty punched Johnny Borrell at a UK music festival last summer, suggestions were made that it was the former Libertine's most coherent action of the whole year. Putting himself on a par with John Lennon and Bono at Live8 and formerly suggesting Razorlight's debut was a darn sight better than the cobblers Bob Dylan managed on his first album, frontman Borrell has a knack for rubbing people up the wrong way with his cocksure assessments of his ability. But what if the little bugger's actually right? With this eponymous sophomore album, signs are good that maybe Razorlight have a little more to them than a bigmouthed frontman.

Cunningly, debut Razorlight album Up All Night has naturally been followed by new single In The Morning, a humble tune that unsteadily wanders back home in a post-party haze while humming tunes by The Zutons and The Coral. `Last night was so much fun and now your sheets are dirty,' Johnny mutters during this track, before reprising the rationale on Kirby's House with the lyric `in the morning, you know we won't remember a thing'. A different rendition to the Kirby's House version which appeared on last year's Help: A Day In The Life album, the 2006 model is stripped back and subdued yet still one of the finer points of this CD. Elsewhere, America has an Elton John style flair for arrangement and the tremendous Los Angeles Waltz ends this eponymous release on a high.

Johnny's claim that his band is better than both The Kooks and Arctic Monkeys may seem borderline sacrilege in the current music climate, but with a retrospective eye cast over 2006, Razorlight's latest album may well have the last laugh."