Razorblade

The debut album by Dutch street punk act Razorblade starts with a tongue-in-cheek snatch of Richard Wagner, just the sort of fanfare that many '70s stadium acts used as their walk-on music. That pomposity is immediately deflated by the straight-ahead punk fury of "Put in the Boot," and things rarely let up from there. The quartet, led by singer/guitarist Wouter Davids, is nearly retro in its devotion to first-wave Oi! standards: there's none of the grindcore or emo influence in so many current street-punk bands, and although Davids has a deep, growly voice, the effect is much closer to prime Lemmy than the clichéd Cookie Monster death metal rasp. Tempos tend to run surprisingly slow, closer to the metal-edged stomp of the Angelic Upstarts than the hyperspeed thrash of later bands, and song structure basically consists of "select guitar riff, repeat for three minutes, stop." Strictly old-school street punk, then, and all the better for it.