Babyshambles head Pete Doherty is more famous for being Kate Moss’ drug addicted boyfriend than for creating good music, which is a bit unfair really, as he was behind two of this century’s most important rock records together with his former friend Carl Barât. Known as The Libertines they released their debut “Up the Bracket” and its follow-up “The Libertines” to great critical praise in 2003 and 2004 respectively. “Can’t stand me now“, the brutally honest opening track of the second Libertines album, dealt with Doherty and Barât’s ambivalent relationship at the time, not unsimilar to the way the first song on “Down in Albion“‘, “La Belle et la Bête“, talks about Doherty’s relationship with Kate Moss (the star model provides backing vocals on the track), now more than a year after Doherty was kicked out of The Libertines due to his drug abuse.

It seems a fair question to ask if Doherty’s Babyshambles can propell him back up to the level of musical genius he had reached together with Barât. Doherty had written a big part of The Libertines’ songs, and when “Killamangiro“, the first single of his then side-project Babyshambles, was released shortly after “The Libertines” in summer 2004, a casual listener couldn’t spot any difference between the two bands’ sound. “Killamangiro” could easily be mistaken for a Libertines tune. This version of the song did not make it onto “Down in Albion“, however. Doherty decided to re-record the track, and when listening to the album it becomes immediately obvious why: “Down in Albion” is even more lo-fi than both Libertines records.

The music on “Down in Albion” being so reminiscent of The Libertines has more to do with Doherty’s unmistakeable voice and guitarplay. Because Babyshambles sounds far edgier and features new musical influences like Reggae (most apparent on “Sticks and Stones” and “Pentonville“, the only real let down on the album) - not unlike the music of british band The Clash in the seventies. That shouldn’t be surprising considering the fact that former The Clash singer Mick Jones produced “Down in Albion“. Actually, you feel almost compelled to say under-produced, for Doherty’s new sound comes across as very raw and hardly mixed, at least not to a fully satisfying degree. “Down in Albion” then is more like a diary than a self-contained album, a single moment in the band’s fluctuous musical journey recorded onto disc. There is no final or definite version of any one song, and Doherty seems very aware and supportive of this, releasing new samples of Babyshambles tunes on the band’s website time and time again.

In spite of this, and in reality probably exactly because “Down in Albion” sounds like a spontaneous single-session recording, the album flows very well. The opener “La Belle et la Bête” is followed by previous single “Fuck Forever“, a brilliant forey into the realms of grunge (the song quite ingeniously drops out of tune near the end while Doherty creaks “They’ll never play this on the radio!” - indeed, this bit did not feature on the single edit played on radio stations). The albums strongest phase takes place in the middle of the first half with the succession of three very strong tracks “Pipedown” (according to newspaper reports, Doherty had to tell his grandmother he was actually singing “Paddy put the pint down”), “Sticks and Stones” (which starts off with the whistling of the seven dwarves going to work in the morning) and the aforementioned “Killamangiro” in the new version that quickly grows on you after repeat listenings.

The album’s real highlight, however, is unveiled three quarters in - but unveiled might just be too strong a word in fact. “Albion“, the twelfth track, is preceeded by nearly one and a half minutes of excrutiating blips, beeps and knocks, prompting the impression that Doherty wanted to force listeners to skip the track, in order to protect and hide his jewel. Those brave enough to survive the initial noise (or those smart enough to simply fast forward the first 1:20) will be treated to a beautiful escapist road song that perfectly showcases Doherty’s lyrical craft:

Oh reebok classics and / canons at dawn / coffee wallows and pith helmets / and oh an English sun / but if you’re looking for a cheap tart / that’s glint with perspiration / theres a four mile queue outside the disused power station / ah come away, won’t you come away / we’ll go to margate, scarborough, wigan, shepard’s bush / ah anywhere in Albion.

Quite rightly, “Albion” has been selected as the new Babyshambles single.

On the negative side (and to draw up yet another comparison with The Libertines, since the author of these lines refuses to cease holding on to the tiny bit of hope that Doherty might yet turn his back on his decadent life style and be lovingly welcomed back by Barât), almost all of the rhythmic progress The Libertines made with their second album has completely been lost on “Down in Albion“. Doherty has a knack for continuing a song on the following album; “Tell the King” on “Up the Bracket” had a partner in “The Man Who Would Be King” on “The Libertines“, and “What Katie Did” is followed up with “What Katy Did Next” on “Down in Albion” (this Katy obviously refers to Kate Moss). But the second Katy song has nothing of the beautifully nostalgic sixties bubblegum rhythm “What Katie Did” had to offer. And when Doherty sings “there’s a lesson I have learned / if you play with fire you will get burned” on “What Katy Did Next” you have to ask yourself if Doherty is suffering from a seriously shrewed perception of reality or if that’s just his own very particular style of humour.

The fact that Pete Doherty has received more press in the past year than The Libertines did during their entire career could work very much in favor of the record’s sales. But there’s no reason to feel guilty about purchasing this album at all, as overall “Down in Albion” is good enough find appeal beyond the fans of The Libertines thanks to its authenticity and almost painful honesty. Be wary about attending a Babyshambles gig though, make sure you’d receive your money back in the case of the band failing to show up, something that has happened more than once on the current tour (in some instances Doherty later claimed he was never informed of the gig in question).

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