Razorlight embrace the nervy rock of their early work on 2024’s “Planet Nowhere”. Twenty years after their debut “Up All Night”, Razorlight Their new album is the group’s fifth and first to feature the classic Razorlight line up in over a decade. Along with lead singer Johnny Borrell, returning are guitarist Björn Ågren, bassist Carl Dalemo, and drummer Andy Burrows, all of whom left the band around 2009/2010 and who returned around 2019.
Produced by founding Killing Joke bassist Martin Glover, aka Youth, “Planet Nowhere” finds Razorlight digging into the kind of melodic post-punk that made albums like 2006’s “Razorlight” and 2008’s “Slipway Fires” unexpected delights. Here, cuts like “Zombie Love,” “U Can Call Me,” and “Scared of Nothing” have a refreshingly loose, off-the-cuff vibe, as if the band jammed each song into shape in a basement.
Elsewhere, tracks like “F.O.B.F.” and “Cyclops” nicely illuminate the group’s long-standing influences, evoking a blend of Mott the Hoople’s ’70s, pub-friendly glitter rock and the more contemporary, dance-punk style of the Strokes. With “Planet Nowhere”, Razorlight have made an album of catchy, no-nonsense anthems that capture the fizzy, garage-rock swagger of their best work.
The Fat Angel Sings 