Ever since their debut album
Up The Bracket in 2002 "liberated" England from the American domination of bands like
The Strokes and
White Stripes, The Libertines have been able to do very little wrong with the chauvinistic British music press. Even the half-baked comeback album
Anthems For Doomed Youth (2015) didn't change that. Then the same will surely be true for this considerably better follow-up.
Recorded again in the original lineup, All Quiet On The Eastern Explanade offers a lot of familiarity. Opener Run Run Run Run is full of clichés (or are they references?): the title, catchy handclaps, 'it's my party and I'll cry if I want to', 'through the looking glass'... Mustangs sounds uninspired and Oh Shit is a punk song that The Clash would have turned their noses up at back in 1977. Elsewhere, though, bandleaders Carl Barât and Pete Doherty show that they have grown. Musically - a bit of reggae in the nicely boisterous Be Young - but also lyrically. Take the fine Merry Old England, in which the Londoners are concerned with the fate of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Ukraine. Who would have thought? (RME)more
