Planet Nowhere
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RAZORLIGHT – PLANET NOWHERE – ALBUM REVIEW
On the back of their first two albums, you would have expected Razorlight to go on to be a sustainable big hitter in the industry. Alas, everything started to go down hill thereafter and eventually would lead to frontman Johnny Borrell being the sole remaining original member and their record label refusing to release their much delayed fourth album.
After a decade of decline, Borrell managed to commence CPR on the lifeless corpse of Razorlight around 2018 with the release of ‘Olympus Sleeping’ coming at a good time for indie nostalgia. Subsequently the gradual re-introduction of the classic line-up raised the groups stock once again; and bigger and better shows followed as a result.
With that nostalgic feeling assisting, the question mark remained however over whether that original magic could be recaptured in the studio. ‘Planet Nowhere’ is the first new album from the classic Razorlight line-up since 2008. Meaning that despite numerous attempts, ‘Olympus Sleeping’ now sits as the only Razorlight album not to feature the line-up of Borrell, Andy Burrows, Björn Ågren and Carl Dalemo.
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Despite that sixteen-year gap, it’s evident from opening track, ‘Zombie Love’, that the quirky charm that set Razorlight apart from many of their contemporaries remains intact. As the album progresses it’s interesting to note that feeling of recaptured magic, mixed with an expected aura of added maturity.
It would be disappointing if this was just a rerun of their best work, but equally as off putting if it was an escape from what brought them to fame. You have to say that the quartet have done well to find a balance between past, present and future.
Their renewed vivacity is clear, and this is a fun album which is helped by the relatively short track list and run-time. That said this is no masterpiece and won’t even be regarded as the best album to be released this week, let alone trouble any of the album of the year lists that are peering over the horizon.
‘Planet Nowhere’ is a jolly romp and that’s really all that it needs to be. Lapsed fans of the band won’t regret allocating some time to check this album out, but odds are ‘Up All Night’ will be back on the record player soon after.
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