Razorlight: Razorlight : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

You have to hand it to neo-Britpop second-stringers Razorlight: Amid all the Eighties cannibalism of the past few years, no one else had dared to bite the likes of Fine Young Cannibals as these guys do to puzzling perfection on the featherweight blue-eyed-soul track "Who Needs Love." The rest of the album is similarly perplexing. Instead of the debauched street-poet vibe of 2004's debut, Up All Night, it finds the quartet pursuing toothless, head-bopping pop rock that evokes acts from the Spencer Davis Group (the "Gimme Some Lovin' "-like "Fall to Pieces") to Talking Heads ("Pop Song 2006"). The tight arrangements are impressive in their guitar-bass-drums spareness, but the overall feel still falls somewhere between sterile and silly, with the nadir coming early on in the would-be anthem "America" -- which even Jesus Jones would have rejected as overblown.