Razzmattazz
Rock N Roll Hero

Blur made a song called Razzmatazz a while ago and it could be where this semi German band gets their name from, even though I personally think they've got more inspiration from Nazareth and their song Razamanaz. Either way, they make some really bald statements about their band saying you either must be "deaf or dead to not being electrified by this band" and other superlatives about them selves - like how freaking great they are, how loud and groovy they are, how much raw energy they have and high voltage their music is and how electrifying both their music and live shows are and their music is "charged with emotions". Big words, but are they delivering what they promise?

Well, the album starts with the title track, which is called Rock 'n' Roll Hero, and later on they have a song called Metalgod. They're certainly confident about them selves but to me it seems like they're living the rock star dream. I'm saying dream because if you really are a rock star you don't just say you're great - you actually are! But the only one I think will consider Razzamattazz as rock stars are them selves.

The music is standardized rock - not particularly hard and not particularly fast. Most of the music have that standardized sound similar to big bikes on idle running which is quite common in this kind of harder rock music - kind of southern rock or bikers rock. There's a duell between the bass and guitar in almost every song going on from the beginning of the songs 'til then end and on vocals we hear an old goat - or at least Tom Schaupp sound quite alike one with his worn and hoarse voice. I think the music gets really basic most of the time and since there's only three musicians it's not so strange they've scaled it down because otherwise they might get problems playing the songs live and even if they don't play live they'll still need to do more work whilst in the studio and I just can't see these guys doing more work than necessary - dreamers seldom wants. They think the world is their silver plate and everything just serves itself but who am I to judge, they probably just wanted that really spartan sound and they seem possessed by recreating that rocking you get from the bike, most biker rockers are and it might be because they really wants to recreate that feeling of having their moped shaking between their legs. And I think Razzamattazz succeeds quite well in recreating this rocking, the album have that biky rocky feeling and I'm sure they'll pick up a couple of people that wants this rocking touch but far from everyone likes it and Razzamattazz really don't have anything else to attract with so to call everyone either death or dead not to like this is like saying you're either blind or paralyzed if you're not sexually attracted by Bill Clinton - I mean why would we? Some people just aren't in to that thing.

I don't think this is particularly good and I'm pretty sure I'm able to both hear and live. I'm not saying it's bad either, some things works and you can listen to this album but the songs just aren't that special and I'm pretty sure I've heard this before and done better as well. So as far as I see it Razzamattazz doesn't really contribute with anything - nothing new and nothing better, they do what they do with a decent result - I'm not saying anything about that but not in an impressing, inspiring way and I really don't feel any urges at all to hear more of this band. The album is also quite long with 14 tracks on about 4 minutes each (resulting in almost exactly an hour of running time) so one go at a time is more than enough for me.

I know I sound very negative and maybe that's a bit unfair to Razzamattazz because even though I am quite negative I still can't say they're awful in any way. The big problem I have with the band is how they promote themselves as the best fucking band in the world, writing things like "we're the best band ever and everyone that don't agree with that are fucking idiots that are death and stupid. We're just the best band and you'll never hear anything as good as this" and other things like that. They're not saying this literarily but not far from it and when you can't deliver what you're promising when you promise things like that I'm always going to be more negative than I perhaps would be had they admitted that OK - we're not for everyone, but we're fucking great at the thing we do. But that's not what Razzamattazz say. They don't suck in any kind of way but neither are they particularly "electrifying" or "exciting" or "energetic" or "groovy". They're just another biker rock band and they don't stand out in their sub genre so they're definitely not standing out outside of it.

'Rock 'n' Roll Hero' is listenable but you really don't have to be either deaf or dead to dislike it, all you need is a music preference that's somewhat sophisticated.

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