Razorlight Slipway Fires (Proper) 2008 DV8

Artist: Razorlight
Title: Slipway Fires
Label: Mercury
Genre: Indie
Bitrate: 198kbit av.
Time: 00:38:46
Size: 58.14 mb
Rip Date: 2008-11-03
Str Date: 2008-11-03

1. Wire To Wire 3:05
2. Hostage Of Love 3:44
3. You And The Rest 3:25
4. Tabloid Lover 2:57
5. North London Trash 3:28
6. 60 Thompson 2:37
7. Stinger 4:17
8. Burberry Blue Eyes 3:33
9. Blood For Wild Blood 3:11
10. Monster Boots 4:34
11. The House 3:55

Release Notes:

Reasons for Proper: Track 2 had a glitch and had no id3tag,
plus it was mis-spelt. Tracks 3 and 4 were tagged the wrong
way round.

Few contemporary Brit rockers have been more widely ridiculed,
or even loathed, than Johnny Borrell. It says a lot about the
timid, softly-softly approach of the current crop of musicians
that JB should be so reviled.

On the face of it, Johnny's crimes match the standard-issue
charge sheet of the young upstart - modest talent struggling
to inhabit an ego the size of Wembley Stadium, supreme
arrogance fuelling a mouth as big as the Mersey Tunnel. And on
the third Razorlight album - a record once thought to be in
jeopardy because even Johnny's bandmates found him overbearing
- he plays to the gallery.

North London Trash is guttersnipe biography in the style of
Borrell's heroes The Clash, and offers a cheeky but honest pen
portrait - 'I'm really no one special/But I've seen you do
much worse.'

On folksy ballad Hostage Of Love, he's the ultimate martyr for
the cause - 'Words of derision I have swallowed with a
smile/For telling my story I've been crucified'.

Borrell's Christ complex may, of course, mask a small
whimpering soul hounded by self doubt. But it's the part he's
chosen to play. And he plays it well.

Surely it's good to have ambition, something to aspire to? But
that means aiming higher than the shooting fish in a barrel
funk gunk of Tabloid Lover. Which, to his credit, he does for
the most part, snaring the angry modern poet mantle on Blood
For Wild Blood, before launching into Burberry Blue Eyes - a
seductively vicious attack on an aristocratic airhead shagging
indiscriminately while slumming it on the King's Road.

In time-honoured Dylanesque fashion, Borrell matches
sensitivity to the savagery. You And The Rest ruefully
contemplates the challenges of monogamy ('There are only two
women here/You and the rest that pass me by'), while the
silken, reflective 60 Thompson, savours the attractions of
togetherness.

Throughout, Razorlight's rock literacy is at least GCSE
Advanced Level and Johnny boy's ability to rustle up a persona
that winds folk up seals the deal. Someone might want to break
it, gently, to Chris Martin and co that when it comes to
making rock 'n' roll, niceness and modesty really aren't that
important.