Feeds
Yet despite sparking more tabloid tittle tattle than a gush of wind up a knickerless Britney Spears' dress, Pete's managed to assemble the troops and make his best album since he first swung into view with his Libertines buddies on Up The Bracket. How much of this is down to the 'poetic genius' of Pete Doherty (Copyright NME) is questionable, as the star of the show on Shotter's Nation is surely producer Stephen Street. He's taken the scruffy, rag-tag collective that vomited out the stinking, indulgent Down In Albion and squeezed them into a fighting-fit sharp-edged rock outfit. Much as he morphed the sub-Happy Mondays, baggy imitating Blur into sleek 'Parklife' rockers, he's transformed the sub-Libertines, grot 'n' roll Babyshambles into a band worthy of Doherty's obvious lyrical talents. Gone are the needless spluttering intros and sprawled outros that dampened the debut. Where Mick Jones let Pete scratch around the studio, recording every picked nose and bum scratch, Street cuts the crap and has given some meat to the band that sounded like they'd only just progressed from their Fisher Price music kits.
Skipping over the scratchy, everyone-feel-sorry-for-poor-Pete ("Ah it's not easy gettin' outta bed"), opener 'Carry On Up The Morning', we are given a neat one-two-three of 'Delivery', 'Your Talk' and 'UnBiloTitled'. Debut single 'Delivery' wallops you round the chops with a nicked Kinks riff and some pristine Doherty fragile vocals. During 'You Talk', possibly the group's 'poppiest' moment to date, you half expect Damon Albarn to jump in halfway through and start bellowing in his finest Mockney about living in a 'Country House', it's so Britpop. Finishing up is 'UnBiloTitled' which is the sharper-dressed older cousin of their number 8 hit single 'Albion', with Pete defiantly crooning: "He was stronger than the walls they tried to / Build around him, to dumb and dumbfound him" over an off-kilter, swooning guitar before dozily declaring: "I messed my head and I miss my head."
There's plenty for the die-hard Shamble-ites to get their teeth stuck into lyrically, as usual. Besides the usual mix of Albion-talk and references to Bilo and Wolfman, there's enough ambiguity to keep Doherty forums buzzing about whether it's Carl, Kate or any number of mystery women that he's loving, blaming or scathing about. Whether it's the helpless plea of "Get up off your back, stop smoking that / Change your life, think it'll change her mind" on album closer 'Lost Art Of Murder' or the vicious "You smoke your cigarette down to the bone / Best not to mention you're craving attention / Love from fame like a blood from a stone" on Pete's two-fingered attack on the red-tops in 'Unstookie Titled'. Yet it's probably the fact that the album doesn't get too bogged down in the mad, crazy world of Pete and become overwhelmed by his tales of woe and sick pussycat that makes this album so superior to Babyshambles' last outing.
While half the deal with The Libertines was their antiquated romanticism, it wouldn't have amounted to much more than dodgy public school poetry exercises without the crisp melodies, jaunty verses and crunching riffs. So it's the pristine pop-hooks of 'Deft Left Hand', the 'Baddie's Boogie', the filthy garage blues romp of 'Crumb Begging Baghead' and the double-bass led lounge bounce of 'There She Goes' which lift Shotter's Nation above the murk and squalor that has previously held the band back. It's not quite the legendary album that so many fans are still tentatively waiting for Pete to unleash, but it's so many million miles away from the News Of The World scoops and grim debut that its imperfections are forgivable. Welcome back Pete Doherty - all is (nearly) forgiven.
