Planet Nowhere

Britains Razorlight embrace the nervy rock of their early work on 2024s Planet Nowhere. The album is the groups fifth and first to feature the classic Razorlight lineup in over a decade. Along with lead singer Johnny Borrell, returning are guitarist Bjorn Agren, 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 2006s Razorlight and 2008s 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 groups long-standing influences, evoking a blend of Mott the Hooples 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. ~ Matt Collar