Ray Noir’s “Razorblade Romance” has a fierce industrial rock sound and haunted, emotionally heavy lyrics. It is a powerful anthem for anyone who has been cast aside in society. With the searing guitar work of multiple GRAMMY Award-winning guitarist Steve Stevens, famous for his memorable Cold War classic work with Billy Idol and Top Gun, the song is an adrenaline surge of pure adrenaline and pure rock n’ roll.
For Ray, a queer POC artist with a background in Norway’s metal world, “Razorblade Romance” is a highly personal statement. It’s a matter of music and a question of surviving, repossessing identity, and protesting not to be muffled. “This song feels like planning my own funeral,” Ray explains, and sure enough, you can hear the weight of those words in his voice as he sings over the rest of the track. As the song enters full cry, it is a roar against rigidity in masculinity that nearly quashed him, a fight to be allowed to exist as he is despite the scars that still remain.
The opening notes send you into a dark, defiant world where the harrowing guitar riffs of Steve Stevens meet Ray’s lyrics in a way that gives the song almost a cinematic sense of impending doom. But there is also, amid the darkness, an undeniable sense of resilience and survival. The industrial rock sound is brutal to match the message, but somewhere in there is beauty, too. The song is equally unsettling and empowering, a raw nerve of a song about the struggle to live truthfully in a world that seems determined to keep you down if you don’t fit its mold.
“Razorblade Romance,” produced and mixed by Jon Cass and mastered by Joe Farr, exudes a burning, high-voltage aura suitable for its willful attitude. It’s a call to arms for anyone who’s ever felt like an outsider in the alt world or the world at large. “Razorblade Romance” is survival at its best. It’s a dark, daring dessert that is, of course, impossible to ignore.
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