The Libertines ‘All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade’ – Review

Pete Doherty and Carl Barat‘s early hits were soap operas. Their dramas, drugs, detainments, fights and flings became fodder for some of the most deliriously unhinged Indie Rock of the Era. They wrote songs that nobody else could write. Take ‘Can’t Stand Me Now’, which described the night Pete was arrested for breaking into Carl’s flat and stealing musical equipment. ‘Your light fingers through the dark, shattered the lamp into darkness you cast aside…’ Where or when else would such a song even be possible? The Libertines performed with the frantic energy of four men trapped in a burning car on the side of a motorway. More than that, they sung about the flames as they licked the flesh from their bones. The libertines were chaos and chaos was the whole point.

After some years in the wilderness, 2015’s ‘Anthems for Doomed Youth’ picked up where their 2004 self titled record left off – even if Ed Sheeran Producer Jake Gosling managed to neuter some of the idiosyncrasies that once made them so unique. But It was still a record by, and about, two friends struggling to reconcile their rock n roll dreams with maintaining a healthy relationship. Follow up ‘All Quiet on the Eastern Esplande’ is therefore the first Libertines record not made in the blazing heat of addiction, prison and personal disaster. It’s careful, it’s well produced, it’s melodic, it’s… strangely polite. In that sense and perhaps that sense alone it breaks new ground for The Libertines.

‘All Quiet on the Eastern Esplande’ begins with ‘Run, Run, Run’ a rose tinted indie-rock throwback that tries to warn again the very nostalgia it’s evoking. ‘You better run, run, run boy faster than the past, through the looking glass, if you want the night to last.’ The track hits all the right marks without ever really burning enough fuel to take flight. Similar things can be said for all of the record’s more energetic numbers, which are are safer and stodgier than The Libertines’ classic material.

The duo’s poetic sharpness feels a little blunted. Merry Old England’ presents an update on ‘Albion’, a very early Doherty/Barat tune that was refashioned into the title track of Babyshambles debut album. The song sees our green and pleasant land from the perspective of an immigrant – the white cliffs now greying, the crisp packets and puddles muddying – but in contrast to ‘Albion’ the song says remarkably little about a topic rich with potential. Equally disappointing is ‘Shiver’ which seems to be a eulogy of sorts for the late Queen Elizabeth but doesn’t find anything profound to say in its depiction of National loss and eroding tradition. ‘They all queued up to see the old girl’s gone away’ is about the length and breadth of it.

A smattering of melancholic ballads make up a small chunk of the record. These songs thread the line between Jazz, Folk and Music Hall. They have a pre-war fancy to them which is reminiscent of the kind of stuff Pete and Carl started writing together at the turn of the 21st Century, before The Strokes frazzled their brain cells. The highlight of these is ‘Man with the Melody’, a wistful little ditty penned by bass player John Hassall and partly sung by drummer Gary Powell. Here the band attempt something genuinely detached from the indie rock that made them infamous. Several years ago the group teased a double record in the mould of The Clash’s ‘Sandinista’; Man with the Melody’ suggests one of the peculiar directions such a record might have gone off in. As it is though, ‘All Quiet…’ is by and large a fairly linear and unadventurous, meat and potatoes album.

There is a lot to be said for surviving. Peter is off the drugs and on the cooked Breakfasts, and that has to be a good thing. Had he overdosed in 2004 – once so likely he became the sole focus of an episode of BBC’s Newsnight – those first two albums would have become firey monuments to rock n roll excess. They would be spoken about in the same breath as those other pinnacles of lost promise such as ‘Grace’ and ‘Back to Black.’ I have a theory that Pete might have become the British answer to Kurt Cobain; a doomed romantic overwhelmed by his own demons just as his incredible talent was burgeoning. As it is, that won’t be Doherty’s legacy. And so there is an interesting story to be told about recovery and resilience when your entire career has been defined by addiction; but for better or worse that isn’t the story Pete wants to tell today. ‘All Quiet…’ plays it safe by almost entirely steering away from the kind of personal intrigue he once built albums around. 

With the fire contained, the wildness tamed, the spark dimmed, you’re left with songs that are simply songs, for better or worse. Tuneful, tasteful songs. But ultimately The Libertines status as an iconic band is ironclad and a so-so late career record is unlikely to chip away at that. To be fair, the worst you could say about The Libertines here is that they sound like one of the countless imitators who came in their wake. They sound like Dirty Pretty Things. 

6/10