Single Of The Month
"Modesty is an admirable – and very English attribute. And not one customarily associated with young bucks like Razorlight. But here is heartbreaker Johnny Borrell candidly admitting that “I get over the breaks then I…stumble and fall”. Scant evidence of Razorlight stumbling or falling yet, even if they haven’t quite had the chart action they deserve. But with this single already gaining plenty of airplay, ‘Stumble And Fall’ should surely be the one to change that.
Poppier, nimbler and more immediately melodic than either ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Lies’ or ‘Rip It Up’, ‘Stumble And Fall’ still doesn’t jettison one iota of edge, energy or sheer damn sexiness. Borrell’s pin-sharp guitar and Christian Smith-Pancorvo’s pummelling drums set up a syncopated interplay under the understated first verse, before everything crashes in for a first-time hummalong of a chorus. But the genius of ‘Stumble…’ is that each time you think it’s hit a peak, it scales another. So the second verse immediately eclipses the chorus, Borrell’s lyrics tumbling out in a torrent, before the chorus goes one louder with a great group harmony. Can’t get better? It does: a beautifully angular guitar break from Bjorn Ågren rockets skyward before it’s rudely – and deliberately – interrupted by Borrell’s brutal one-note bluster, just like John Lennon deliberating fucking up the other Fabs’ fret-wanking on ‘The End’. A lofty comparison? Too right: with musicianship and song-writing this good, Razorlight are building up to the big league.
As such, though, they need to quit with the doodling around – one half-arsed white reggae number with a half-written lyric per CD is two too many – ‘For Georgia, At The Hammersmith Working Mens’ Club’ and ‘We All Get Up’ (dis)respectively. If you’re thinking they’re saving their best stuff for their imminent album, you’d be very, very right, but you’d also be overlooking ‘Control’, the secret weapon on CD1, and a song so good it could be a double-A with ‘Stumble...’. A sly, brooding mid-pacer that nods at New Order’s ‘Leave Me Alone’ and Roxy Music’s ‘Virginia Plain’(both impeccable sources), it’s another immediate imprint on the brain, a melody you’re humming before the end of the first verse. So this time there’s no need for modesty: rather than stumbling and falling, this one should see them cartwheel and fly."
"'Libertines-in-waiting Razorlight jangle into this weeks singles with the criminally catchy 'Stumble & Fall'. Britpop, it would seem, has returned, stripped down, spruced up and with a large dose of sex in the form of Johnny Borrell's honeyed voice. About time too."
"Sometimes you struggle to find a new angle; after a while, phrases like ‘British Strokes’, ‘great hopes of British music’ and ‘former-Libertine’ stack up to a point whereby any ability to analysis or critique is crushed under the weight of Time Out by-lines.
Sometimes, it’s best just to talk about what’s in front of you, and ‘Stumble and Fall’, the precursor to the band’s debut album, is an assured piece of staccato guitar pop, which, while not having the immediacy of ‘Rock n Roll Lies’ (one of ‘the’ great riffs of 2003), does have a sense that the band might just be in it for the long haul. Happily, it reminds this reviewer, for no apparent reason, of The Clash, and it oozes a self-iconicism that is heartening for reasons, that once again escape me. It’s just good; simple as…."
"Unadulterated rock'n'roll: a mix of hedonism, pop perfection and great hair - Razorlight.
The Libertines-cum-Strokes cool with songs to match the Kinks, the Clash and the Who. Plug-in pioneers of the 21st Century...Razorlight.
Third single 'Stumble And Fall' is another slab of the greatest songwriting to come out of Britain in the last five years. Short, sharp, and like a knee to the groin, this is music to make you howl at the sky and dance like a lunatic.
Razorlight, the best new band in Britain. Any questions?
"Never, ever believe the hype. That’s a mantra round these parts, and if you’ve any sense - or if you’ve been let down one too many times by the over-inflated prose that’s followed a legion of Next Big Things straight down the wastepipe - then it’s a mantra in your bedroom as well. You may, indeed should, have heard all about Razorlight by now. They’ve been tipped for great things by virtually everybody who’s heard them, and came somewhere near the top of the BBC’s recent music writers poll for 2004’s big noise. Unusually though, Razorlight don’t make a big noise, they make some kind of glorious pop noise. Pop noise? Keep reading. This is the same kind of pop noise that launched The Libertines to infamy; the same kind of pop noise that underpinned the careers of Elvis Costello and The Jam. Its’ the kind of pop noise that gets right up your parents’ nose, or would do had they not grown up listening to this stuff themselves. That doesn’t make Razorlight retro, nor does it make them safe; it just takes them back to a place where being different was all that mattered, and for this reason alone here’s one band that deserves every column inch of overheated praise that comes their way. "
"Third time in, it’s the lovable chime of Razorlight – this time, in an everyman’s anthem, produced lavishly by their label-chief and legendary producer-extraordinaire, Steve Lillywhite.
‘And I get over the breaks/And I stumble and fall.’ Johnny Borrell and co.’s admirable blend of Libertines guitars and sweet, infectious, light melody hits its stride this time ‘round, no doubt set to garner the London-Swede foursome their debut-hit. Not before time too."
"Oh to be Johnny Borrell….
Courted by every major record label over the past 12 months, mates with the Libertines, darling of the music press, one of the BBC’s tips for greatness in 2004 and currently dating the pretty one from the Queens Of Noise.
And to cap it all off, he and his band write some of the most infectious, rip-roaring three minute pop songs-cum-guitar anthems this side of Strummer and Jones in their seventies heyday with The Clash, so for once the hype represents a definitive account of a band’s creative nuances rather than a desperate attempt at building up an incredibly average bunch of chancers, which Razorlight clearly aren’t.
‘Stumble And Fall’ resembles a close cousin of The Primitives’ ‘Crash’ in the way it wears it’s punk/pop sensibilities firmly on it’s cufflinks, and thanks to the growing exposure it’s been receiving on daytime Radio One should emulate Tracy Tracy and co’s success with due abandon. "
"Razorlight do quirky, jangly pop in an old fashioned way that makes us want to dispense with shoes and drink cider in parks like we did during our college days. I dunno, maybe it makes other people want to study. Either way, ‘Stumble And Fall’ is perky, chirpy, and makes you long for David Gedge, although this may induce vomiting in some."
"Razorlight are being touted all over the music media at the mo. There is a reason. Fans of The Strokes, The Libertines and all the current bands out there beginning with "The" ought to take heed. Stumble and Fall is a pacey uplifting track with a sentiment we all share. With all the seedy "back of a pub" type atmosphere you could want, the joys of a drummer who speeds up during a song, the guitarist who requires almost no effects whatsoever but still rocks and the evident Lahndahn attitude. These boys will probably try to rock you at some point soon. They may succeed."