- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Q MagazineIn its progress from raw ambition to actual intent, this mirrors U2's great leap forward from Boy and October to War. [Aug 2006, p.108]
-
It's a soulful, romantic album about what happens when the lights come up at the end of the night and life smacks you in the face.
-
Razorlight have dropped the urgency and brashness of indie-disco floor-fillers like 'Rip it Up' and traded it for the boldness of tracks such as 'Somewhere Else'. It isn't easy to graduate from teenage bedrooms to coffee-table status without compromising on credibility, but the quartet have managed it somehow.
-
[It] touches on everything great about classic, epic rock from the past 30 years.
-
Razorlight ultimately has more in common with Wham! than The Jam, and Bay City Rollers more than The Strokes. But the band can write a hook.
-
Spin[Razorlight] give post-Strokes neo-garage rock a tidy soul makeover. [Sep 2006, p.111]
-
They make honest indie rock for those looking for a solid, good song. There's no frills, no fancy production, just the purity of these songs.
-
Razorlight shoots from the hip noticeably more immediate than the group's more manicured 2004 debut.
-
UncutIt strives shamelessly for the widescreen appeal of U2's Big Music. [Aug 2006, p.88]
-
MojoOn the downside, Razorlight is lyrically hamstrung. [Aug 2006, p.104]
-
The thinness of the sound, the lack of any edge, and the fact that most of these songs start off terribly prove too much to overcome, but Razorlight is not nearly the disaster that it could've been.
-
They’ve merely decided to exchange one set of quite transparent influences for another, less-effective set.
-
Under The RadarUp All Night is far from terrible and often a pleasant listen, but there’s nothing particularly enchanting about singer Johnny Borrell’s “vox,” and if anything seems to be lacking here, it’s perhaps a sense of musical identity. [#15]
-
It's those lyrics that make much of this second album such a disappointment.
-
Rolling StoneThe tight arrangements are impressive in their guitar-bass-drums spareness, but the overall feel still falls somewhere between sterile and silly. [7 Sep 2006, p.107]
-
Razorlight is a bloodless, careerist record that has nothing to say that you haven’t heard a million times before.
-
They've jettisoned nearly all their Strokes, Television, and other grab bag post-punk propensities, turning instead to adult alternative as a foundation for this late-20s midlife crisis. I guess if ya can't beat 'em, just quit and make soft rock!
-
The solipsism and trite accounts of benders from the first album are still there, but the music has gone exceedingly soft.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 23 out of 38
-
Mixed: 3 out of 38
-
Negative: 12 out of 38
-
Mar 31, 2016
-
Apr 23, 2012
-
GabiP.May 10, 2007