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THE LIBERTINES
RATING: 6
PLAY THESE: CAN'T STAND ME NOW, WHAT KATIE DID, WHAT BECAME OF THE LIKELY LADS
SKIP THESE: DON'T BE SHY, THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING
Well, I've finally gotten 'round to listening to the self-titled second album by The Libertines, the now-defunct UK band that enthralled the entire British music scene before inter-group squabbling and Pete Doherty's drug problems derailed their career just over a year ago. Being an avid reader of imported British music publications, I've long been aware of this group, but until now I'd never before heard an actual Libertines song. You see, nobody in North America gives a crap about these guys, and as such I've never heard a Libertines song on the radio. I'm the only person I know who's even HEARD of Pete Doherty, which is odd considering the well-publicized fact that his supermodel girlfriend Kate Moss was filmed doing drugs with him in the studio (he wasn't even mentioned in most newspaper accounts of the incident). As a result, I'm approaching this music with relatively fresh ears, mostly untainted by NME hype and media coverage of Pete's latest drug charges.
Unfortunately, I'm sorry to say that this album is kind of crappy. I do love the SOUND of the group's punk-influenced, opiate-infused shtick, but these guys can't write songs worth a poop. I honestly wanted to like this album, but I'm sorry to say that this is the sound of Pete Doherty's brain on drugs, and that sound ain't very pretty. The arrangements are unfocussed and aimless, and even though there are some good melodies to be found, distressingly little stands out as truly great. There are a lot of interesting musical bits scattered throughout the record, but these guys are in desperate need of an editor. I had previously assumed that producer and former Clash great Mick Jones would have been the perfect man for the job, but judging by these tracks he was to busy shoveling mountains of cocaine up his nose to bother cleaning up this sonic mess up. Take 'Road To Ruin,' for example, which starts off promisingly enough, but the song gets stuck in a "can't get out of this jam" rut so amateur-sounding that it almost destroys all that came before it.
The frustrating thing about this is the fact that when this band gets its shit together it really does deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as The Clash and other great British bands of the past. The album opener 'Can't Stand Me Now' is a deserved UK hit single, and it has everything you could ever want in a song: a great melody, fantastically slurry vocals, a perfect chorus, and a beat you can break stuff to. This song is very, very good, and is definitely the best moment on the record. With a bit of work 'Music When The Lights Go Out' could also have been great, a pleasant-but-unfocused acoustic tune that hints at what might have been. The punkish 'Last Post On The Bugle' rocks hard, and the bouncy, ultra-British 'What Katie Did' is pretty darn catchy, what with the doo-wop vocals and all. The album closer 'What Became of the Likely Lads' is a bit Kinks-like, with another good melody, but again, it's got a dog-awful arrangement.
As for the low points, nothing truly stinks, but some tracks are definitely grating. 'Don't Be Shy' is particularly irritating, with awful, out-of-pitch falsetto vocals, and it drags on and on - despite being a mere three minutes long. Even worse is 'The Man Who Would Be King,' a track that goes absolutely nowhere, and is probably the most annoying song I've heard in a while. Oh, and whoever sings harmonies on this one needs to be slapped - the singing is simply awful. The arrangement itself is ambitious, but the boys lack the musicianship to be able to pull it off convincingly.
In the end, then, The Libertines has its merits, but anyone who thinks this band is as good as NME claims they are needs to give their head a shake. Six out of ten.