Artist: Razorlight | Title: Slipway Fires | Year Of Release: 2008 | Label: Vertigo | Genre: Rock, Indie Rock

Slipway Fires is Razorlight’s most mainstream release to date, an album that downplays the band’s garage-rock past for something akin to Snow Patrol’s adult-approved pop. Theatrical harmonies and hooks demonstrate the band’s growth — they’re no longer ripping off the Strokes, having left the swaggering sounds of Up All Night far behind — but growth is the very problem with Slipway Fires, whose mature, polished tones might as well have been recorded by middle-aged AOR vets rather than Clash-loving twentysomethings. This is an album of earnest piano ballads and well-scrubbed rock, an album that sports song titles like “North London Trash” but sounds as dirty as early-’80s Fleetwood Mac. At times, the earnest posturing gives way to something like “Tabloid Lover,” a fun, shamelessly trashy romp that takes its cues from the Bangles. Another highlight, “Burberry Blue Eyes,” calls to mind the Feeling’s bouncy power pop, but while such a song would sound appropriate on the Feeling’s next release, it’s hard to reconcile the fact that Razorlight — a band that previously sang about bar-filled evenings and hung-over mornings — have now traded in their street-smart denim for songs about luxury clothing chains. Enjoying Slipway Fires requires a suspension of disbelief, a conscious separation between the band’s past and the (somewhat ludicrous) present. Of course, not looking at the outlandishly serious cover art — in which frontman Johnny Borrell attacks the camera with a smoldering glare, an unbuttoned dress shirt, and a seemingly un-ironic pearl necklace — may also help.

Tracklist:

01. Wire To Wire (3:05)
02. Hostage Of Love (3:44)
03. You And The Rest (3:25)
04. Tabloid Lover (2:57)
05. North London Trash (3:29)
06. 60 Thompson (2:38)
07. Stinger (4:17)
08. Burberry Blue Eyes (3:34)
09. Blood For Wild Blood (3:11)
10. Monster Boots (4:34)
11. The House (3:55)

Category:Rock
Main catalog

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