THE DUKE LISTENS TO
THE LIBERTINES (2004)
THE LIBERTINES (2004)
Anyone following the grand soap opera that is The Libertines may
well have forgotten one fundamental element amidst all the hoo-
hah about the drugs and the thieving and the jaunts to Buddhist
retreats.
With all the worrying about the state of co-frontman Pete
Doherty’s health, both mental and physical, and all the tension
regarding inter-group relationships and what-not, one can easily
get caught up in the theatrical shenanigans whilst
simultaneously losing sight of what made the band so worthy of
such attention in the first place.
To wit; they are exceptionally good, is the fact of the matter.
Debut album Up The Bracket was as invigorating and exhilarating
a debut as anyone had any right to be expecting from this bunch
of cockney charmers with one ear on The Kinks and The Small
Faces, and the other on The Clash’s first three records, up to
and including the assimilation of Mick Jones as producer, albeit
with much less hair than he had when singing about “When you lot
get out, we’re gonna hit the town, we’ll burn it fucki-ing
doownn!... To a cinder.”
But if that debut spat in the face of expectations about just
how good this ever-so-fashionably dysfunctional crowd could be,
then the new album, set for release on August 30th, will mug
said expectations in a cider-soaked alley and plunder the hell
out of every pocket to be found, not leaving before delivering a
swift boot to the teeth, and saying about “Fuck you, you
expectational son of a bitch.”
I love this band, is the autobiographical dirt to be dug. I put
this in the player hoping for all the world that it would be as
amazing as Up The Bracket. I didn’t expect it to be better. Who
the hell would imagine such absurdities?
Well, imagine, motherfucker, imagine all the people if you will,
and while you’re at it, imagine all those people awash with
orgasmic dementia on account of just how tremendous this record
is, being the new one by The Libertines, what is called The
Libertines.
It’s tremendous as a motherfucker, is what.
The first single, Can’t Stand Me Now, also opens the album, and
immediately one realises how much of a collaborative effort this
seems. First time around, Pete Doherty and Carl Barat pretty
much handled vocal duties exclusive of one another. There was a
Pete song, then a Carl one, and so on and so forth. This time,
for the most part, both of them are spitting over the mic at the
same time, a truly magnificent development in light of all the
yacking about how they hate each other. You can almost imagine
the pair with an arm around the other’s shoulders, perhaps only
to slide the arm down and grab a handful of leather-coated arse-
cheek, although this is purely a matter for speculation.
This “You’re fuckin great, you are” camaraderie reaches a
crescendo in final track, Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads,
which seems to be based on Barat forgiving Doherty of his
foibles.
“Please don’t get me wrong, see I forgive you in a song,
We’ll call it Likely Lads,
See if it’s left to you, I know exactly what you’d do
With all the dreams we had.”
It’s a beautiful moment, a beautiful end to a beautiful fucking
album. “Blood runs thicker, oh as thick as thieves you know, if
it’s important to you.”
Pete replies with a whimsical “It’s important to me.”
It’s not a ballad or no shit like that, but it’s enough to make
a man shed a tear, is what. It’s a stunning song, a summation of
a friendship, a state-of-our-relations address, and it’s going
to get you all hugging like some motherfuckers off The Waltons
what just solved some crisis about John-Boy caught one of them
drinking. When this gets aired at festivals, if Doherty is
indeed still part of the crew when such a thing happens, I swear
to God, tears will fall, man.
well have forgotten one fundamental element amidst all the hoo-
hah about the drugs and the thieving and the jaunts to Buddhist
retreats.
With all the worrying about the state of co-frontman Pete
Doherty’s health, both mental and physical, and all the tension
regarding inter-group relationships and what-not, one can easily
get caught up in the theatrical shenanigans whilst
simultaneously losing sight of what made the band so worthy of
such attention in the first place.
To wit; they are exceptionally good, is the fact of the matter.
Debut album Up The Bracket was as invigorating and exhilarating
a debut as anyone had any right to be expecting from this bunch
of cockney charmers with one ear on The Kinks and The Small
Faces, and the other on The Clash’s first three records, up to
and including the assimilation of Mick Jones as producer, albeit
with much less hair than he had when singing about “When you lot
get out, we’re gonna hit the town, we’ll burn it fucki-ing
doownn!... To a cinder.”
But if that debut spat in the face of expectations about just
how good this ever-so-fashionably dysfunctional crowd could be,
then the new album, set for release on August 30th, will mug
said expectations in a cider-soaked alley and plunder the hell
out of every pocket to be found, not leaving before delivering a
swift boot to the teeth, and saying about “Fuck you, you
expectational son of a bitch.”
I love this band, is the autobiographical dirt to be dug. I put
this in the player hoping for all the world that it would be as
amazing as Up The Bracket. I didn’t expect it to be better. Who
the hell would imagine such absurdities?
Well, imagine, motherfucker, imagine all the people if you will,
and while you’re at it, imagine all those people awash with
orgasmic dementia on account of just how tremendous this record
is, being the new one by The Libertines, what is called The
Libertines.
It’s tremendous as a motherfucker, is what.
The first single, Can’t Stand Me Now, also opens the album, and
immediately one realises how much of a collaborative effort this
seems. First time around, Pete Doherty and Carl Barat pretty
much handled vocal duties exclusive of one another. There was a
Pete song, then a Carl one, and so on and so forth. This time,
for the most part, both of them are spitting over the mic at the
same time, a truly magnificent development in light of all the
yacking about how they hate each other. You can almost imagine
the pair with an arm around the other’s shoulders, perhaps only
to slide the arm down and grab a handful of leather-coated arse-
cheek, although this is purely a matter for speculation.
This “You’re fuckin great, you are” camaraderie reaches a
crescendo in final track, Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads,
which seems to be based on Barat forgiving Doherty of his
foibles.
“Please don’t get me wrong, see I forgive you in a song,
We’ll call it Likely Lads,
See if it’s left to you, I know exactly what you’d do
With all the dreams we had.”
It’s a beautiful moment, a beautiful end to a beautiful fucking
album. “Blood runs thicker, oh as thick as thieves you know, if
it’s important to you.”
Pete replies with a whimsical “It’s important to me.”
It’s not a ballad or no shit like that, but it’s enough to make
a man shed a tear, is what. It’s a stunning song, a summation of
a friendship, a state-of-our-relations address, and it’s going
to get you all hugging like some motherfuckers off The Waltons
what just solved some crisis about John-Boy caught one of them
drinking. When this gets aired at festivals, if Doherty is
indeed still part of the crew when such a thing happens, I swear
to God, tears will fall, man.
Some Libertines - "You're great, you are"
The songwriting in general is uniformly stronger this time
around, illustrating previous limitations that you didn't
even know were there. The band have never been strangers to
melody, as anyone who sat grinning like a sociopath through
Don’t Look Back Into The Sun will attest, but here, things
just soar, getting all Icarus on us and yet remaining
unscorched.
Fuck you, Greek Mythology, is what The Libertines would like
to announce. We will not only fly to the sun, man, but we’ll
grab hold of it and tell it how great it is and let it join
in on a chorus or two.
This is the best album The Duke has had the pleasure of
hearing in ages, and I’ve heard a lot of great stuff, man.
You may remember in the mid-90’s how another British rock
band, The Wildhearts, appeared on the news pages of Kerrang!
every week in existence on account of we’re breaking up,
don't you know, never again will we play together, I hate
that son of a bitch, no, wait, I love him, let’s stay
together. The thing is, though, for the most part, when
those fellas went into the studio, they came out with
shimmering glories like 29x The Pain or Greetings From
Shitsville or My Baby Is A Headfuck.
Every week, when you read about “This is definitely it,
we're splitting the fuck up”, you were gutted, even though
you knew that, shit, it’ll be solved in a half-hour most
likely. The music was so good, the band so amazingly
consistent, that it stung to think they wouldn’t release
anything again.
It’s the same thing with these cats The Libertines.
Listening to Music When The Lights Go Out, what brings to
mind Radio America from Up The Bracket, although this is
structurally more accomplished, The Duke can’t help but put
the euphoria on hold for a second and say shit, Libertines,
y’all better sort this shit out because this is too special,
too uncommon for to be tossed about like some piss-drenched
rag.
An album with not a single fast-forward is a rarity these
days. Even that album about Fuck You, I Don’t Ever Want You
Back, even that opus of doo-wop and swearing and misogyny,
even it had tracks that made you wanna hit the arrows for to
go to the next one.
Not here, man. There’s nothing you don’t wanna hear. Except
you might pause it some times to catch your breath. It hurts
like hell to grin for so long. Even when they get all sad on
you, even then you still grin in the way you were warned
about when you were a kid. Don’t be grinning in such a
manner, you were told, Satan gonna leap up like a
motherfucker and grab you by the nuts for to take you to
Hell as of the right now. Well, Satan’s gonna be rubbing his
hands like never before when this record is released, let
The Duke be the first to announce. That amount of smiling
across the land, that must be indicative of an apocalyptic
level of impurity running through the skulls of man.
So what more do you need? You want The Duke to tell you
about the musical nuances, the nods to The Kinks that are
even more pertinent this time around, the fact that a song
by the name of Campaign Of Hate opens with a bass line that
almost, almost, makes a man think of Winona’s Big Brown
Beaver by Primus? Or how that self same song is not about
puns regarding genitalia, but actually serves to be yet
another slab of uplifting tune-smithery, with a hook line
that’s so cool a motherfucker’s tongue would stick to it.
“Baby, I like the cut of your J-I-B”
This is so good it’s exhausting. I feel knackered just
contemplating it. It’s so good that it will shadow anything
released by anyone this year, of that I’m fairly certain.
Don’t expect ridiculously complex musical arrangements like
what those Flaming Lips would get up to. For that kind of
malarkey you might be interested in the similarly better-
than-anyone-would’ve-thought Together We’re Heavy by The
Polyphonic Spree.
But if it’s melodies, raw bravado what still sings about
“shoop shoop, shoop delang-a-lang”, if it’s songs that feel
like old friends you haven’t saw for years on account of
they stole your furniture for to pay for drugs, but now
you're hugging them because, really, I love you, man, if
it's stuff like that, stuff so simple and yet so complex by
weight of the effect it has on a fella’s blood-pump, then
this is the record for you, man, one that has you salivating
and praying it could just last a second longer, but no, it
has to go. It has to go off right now, cause it’s got a busy
couple months ahead. I mean, shit, all those Best Of 2004
lists aren’t gonna assemble themselves, and how would it
look if the one perched at No.1 couldn’t make it to the
party?
Thank you The Libertines. You make me smile a whole lot.
Drop The Duke A Line
around, illustrating previous limitations that you didn't
even know were there. The band have never been strangers to
melody, as anyone who sat grinning like a sociopath through
Don’t Look Back Into The Sun will attest, but here, things
just soar, getting all Icarus on us and yet remaining
unscorched.
Fuck you, Greek Mythology, is what The Libertines would like
to announce. We will not only fly to the sun, man, but we’ll
grab hold of it and tell it how great it is and let it join
in on a chorus or two.
This is the best album The Duke has had the pleasure of
hearing in ages, and I’ve heard a lot of great stuff, man.
You may remember in the mid-90’s how another British rock
band, The Wildhearts, appeared on the news pages of Kerrang!
every week in existence on account of we’re breaking up,
don't you know, never again will we play together, I hate
that son of a bitch, no, wait, I love him, let’s stay
together. The thing is, though, for the most part, when
those fellas went into the studio, they came out with
shimmering glories like 29x The Pain or Greetings From
Shitsville or My Baby Is A Headfuck.
Every week, when you read about “This is definitely it,
we're splitting the fuck up”, you were gutted, even though
you knew that, shit, it’ll be solved in a half-hour most
likely. The music was so good, the band so amazingly
consistent, that it stung to think they wouldn’t release
anything again.
It’s the same thing with these cats The Libertines.
Listening to Music When The Lights Go Out, what brings to
mind Radio America from Up The Bracket, although this is
structurally more accomplished, The Duke can’t help but put
the euphoria on hold for a second and say shit, Libertines,
y’all better sort this shit out because this is too special,
too uncommon for to be tossed about like some piss-drenched
rag.
An album with not a single fast-forward is a rarity these
days. Even that album about Fuck You, I Don’t Ever Want You
Back, even that opus of doo-wop and swearing and misogyny,
even it had tracks that made you wanna hit the arrows for to
go to the next one.
Not here, man. There’s nothing you don’t wanna hear. Except
you might pause it some times to catch your breath. It hurts
like hell to grin for so long. Even when they get all sad on
you, even then you still grin in the way you were warned
about when you were a kid. Don’t be grinning in such a
manner, you were told, Satan gonna leap up like a
motherfucker and grab you by the nuts for to take you to
Hell as of the right now. Well, Satan’s gonna be rubbing his
hands like never before when this record is released, let
The Duke be the first to announce. That amount of smiling
across the land, that must be indicative of an apocalyptic
level of impurity running through the skulls of man.
So what more do you need? You want The Duke to tell you
about the musical nuances, the nods to The Kinks that are
even more pertinent this time around, the fact that a song
by the name of Campaign Of Hate opens with a bass line that
almost, almost, makes a man think of Winona’s Big Brown
Beaver by Primus? Or how that self same song is not about
puns regarding genitalia, but actually serves to be yet
another slab of uplifting tune-smithery, with a hook line
that’s so cool a motherfucker’s tongue would stick to it.
“Baby, I like the cut of your J-I-B”
This is so good it’s exhausting. I feel knackered just
contemplating it. It’s so good that it will shadow anything
released by anyone this year, of that I’m fairly certain.
Don’t expect ridiculously complex musical arrangements like
what those Flaming Lips would get up to. For that kind of
malarkey you might be interested in the similarly better-
than-anyone-would’ve-thought Together We’re Heavy by The
Polyphonic Spree.
But if it’s melodies, raw bravado what still sings about
“shoop shoop, shoop delang-a-lang”, if it’s songs that feel
like old friends you haven’t saw for years on account of
they stole your furniture for to pay for drugs, but now
you're hugging them because, really, I love you, man, if
it's stuff like that, stuff so simple and yet so complex by
weight of the effect it has on a fella’s blood-pump, then
this is the record for you, man, one that has you salivating
and praying it could just last a second longer, but no, it
has to go. It has to go off right now, cause it’s got a busy
couple months ahead. I mean, shit, all those Best Of 2004
lists aren’t gonna assemble themselves, and how would it
look if the one perched at No.1 couldn’t make it to the
party?
Thank you The Libertines. You make me smile a whole lot.
Drop The Duke A Line
