click pic to read their history
RAZORLIGHT
'UP ALL NIGHT'
THE DEBUT ALBUM
out on Vertigo Records
Monday 21st June 2004
This has to be one of the most hotly anticipated, most gossiped about and
perhaps even greatest albums of 2004.
They are among the hottest young rock
and roll bands in the UK today.
This is 'Up All Night' the debut long player
by Razorlight.
It's been a year of superlatives for the remarkable four
piece.
Now, just 23 and 24 years of age, this four piece couldn't have been
dreamt up.
From Day One Razorlight started very much as they meant to go
on.
Stealing headlines, breaking hearts and carving their own niche, in
terms of exceptional songs and melodies.
Lead singer Johnny Borrell has grown from faltering man-boy
into an outspoken, self assured STAR.
With an underestimated sense of irony
and no shortage of acerbic opinions, the stage has been set for the Razorlight
debut.
It seems as though the UK has been waiting with baited breath since
the minute Razorlight made the front cover of Music Week
- just for getting
a record deal 12 months ago.
And now, almost a year to the day, Razorlight
present their debut.
And they have every reason to be proud.
Although the
album took more than blood, sweat whiskey and tears to make
- plagued as it was by tragedy, jealousy, addiction, floods, absconding
producers, three different studios, lightening strikes, more delays than
Network South East and a drummer stuck up a tree -
Johnny Borrell (vocals
and guitar), Björn Ågren (guitar), Carl Dalemo (bass) and Christian
Smith-Pancorvo (drums) have made their debut.
And it is one of shining tales
of the city.
'Up All Night' is 13 songs of pop perfection, epic storytelling,
rock and roll mayhem, debauched integrity, passion -
simply everything you'd
want from a debut album.
'Up All Night' offers up the kind of songs that just might
save your life.
The flawless piano Intro, through to the immediate punch
of the acid-etched swagger of 'Leave Me Alone', followed by a now definitive
version of their limited edition debut release 'Rock'n'Roll Lies'. Future
single 'Vice' (where maybe the spectre of Springsteen runs through the rain
soaked streets of North London) makes way for album namesake 'Up All Night'
- which became producer John Cornfield's favourite song.
Then there's the
neurotic energy and scrawling art punk guitars of 'Which Way Is Out'.
Second
single :
a new album version of the call to the dancefloor 'Rip It Up' is
followed by a change of mood with 'Dalston' -
a song going out to lost friends
or to the lover you can't leave behind.
One of the best pop songs of the
year and a song of deceptive substance, 'Golden Touch'
is a harmonic high
point and the band's June 7th single release.
'Get It And Go' is the jittery
precursor to single number three;
the perfect 'Stumble & Fall' (the
only song on the album that remains from producer Steve Lillywhite's time
with the band).
Live set closer and homage to Patti Smith's 'Gloria' is
the crowd-pleasing, feral 'In The City'.
The beautiful pop epiphany 'Hang
By, Hang By' comes next, before the band tear their hearts out with the
vast, oceanic 'To The Sea' (Johnny's first producer credit)
complete with
chants from Razorlight's friends and fans, who visited Sphere studios.
The
album's farewell song sees the mood flow to sweet sadness and reconciliation
with 'Fall Fall Fall'.
'Up All Night' was a title picked by the band at
5a.m in Kings Cross, drunk on the city and all that it holds.
What the world is saying about these guys.