razorlight-slipway-fires music reviews Virgin Media
The Byron of indie and friends return with their best to date
Johnny Borrell's ambition to become a tortured rock'n'roll poet puts him in a perilous position, for so often people with similarly lofty plans merely end up joining the steaming pile of egotistical rock'n'rollers. He and his fine band do the easy part of trumpeting their own excellence. The tough bit is making people believe it.
Here more than ever the squire of Highgate channels the spirit of Jim Morrison with pseudo-spiritual babble reaching epic proportions on the uncomfortably erotic Wire To Wire and Hostage To Love. It's good but all oddly reminiscent of Spandau Ballet's earnest hit Through The Barricades.
What marks Slipway Fires out as the moment when Razorlight have finally arrived in the realms of proper album rock is its eccentricities – Tabloid Lover, North London Trash and Burberry Blue Eyes are fabulous knockabout social commentaries (a kind of 21st Century Kinks or Small Faces) while other tracks such as Monster Boots and Blood For Wild Blood teeter daringly on the precipice of blustering embarrassing pretentiousness – veering from Meat Loaf to the smooth dextrous pop of The Police – but somehow, against the odds end up being strangely compelling. Perhaps they're as good as they think they are after all.
More to try: Snow Patrol: A Hundred Million Suns The Police: Regatta de Blanc Julian Cope: Fried The Doors: Strange Days
Reviews round-up
