Pete Doherty – Felt Better Alive

“I gave my nights up for old songs, sound better alive
I gave my life over to old songs, sound better alive”

 The Libertines icon recently released his latest single, ‘Felt Better Alive’, via his label Strap Originals. It is the lead single from the upcoming fifth studio album of the same name, due May 16th.

*image credit: Bridie Cummings

The flourishes of skiffle and slide guitar suit Doherty’s down but not out image with a poetic magic that few can authentically compete with. Alongside the strings, it allows a mournful Doherty to build up an intense narrative before his melody melts all life’s woes away.

Nods to ‘What Katie Did’ and ‘Delany’ sonically toy with his glorious and checkered past on the most textured record within his solo cannon to date. The strings, at points, have a lost-at-sea isolation which plants you in his reality, whereas, lyrically, he seeks to reaffirm his younger self’s dreams and notions of “what might have been”. It’s a juxtaposition that seems a natural fit for his romanticism. However, for those who’ve followed the course of his Albion, it comes loaded with tortured imagery and regret.

As he decrees, “I’d always planned to sing in a sweet and soulful way, as only cowboys can!” Doherty transcends music. Like a bird singing just because it can, Doherty finds the sweet spot between a free soul and one trapped by the past.

After a career-redefining year with The Libertines in 2024, the good ship Albion looks set to sail into more glorious sunsets with its chief troubadour in great form.

The K’s – I Wonder if the World Knows

Last Friday, Earlstown band The K’s released their debut album, ‘I Wonder If The World Knows’ via LAB Records. What followed has been a titanic battle with The Libertines for the number-one album spot.

Image nad artwork courtesy of Sonic PR & Halestorm PR.

The Libertines’ debut album, ‘Up The Bracket’, captured the imagination of a generation twenty-two years ago. Its thoughtful rawness and poetic hit reset on a bloated Britpop and toxic nu-metal scene. 2024 is in a different galaxy to 2002, and so, for The K’s, their debut album is less about reimagining Albion and more about their survival within it.

In this environment, the pressure on bands to run to a perceived middle has often been too great, resulting in beige output. The K’s, like The Simpsons, CM Punk, and Martin Scorsese, always managed to walk the mainstream and underground tightrope simultaneously. Hinged on the partnership between singer-songwriter Jamie Boyle and lead guitarist Ryan Breslin, they take gritty anthems akin to The Jam and The Courteeners (circa St. Jude), such as ‘Hometown’. ‘Heart On My Sleeve’, and ‘Circles’ toward Blossoms, U2, and pop music.

Former single ‘Hometown’ witnesses a flawed protagonist embroiled in a downward spiral (“He’s so easily persuaded by his need to feel sedated / and the only way to get it is to empty all his wages”) set to blistering guitars. Just another indie-rock single? In truth, kind of, but, through Boyle’s vocals, the offshoots of something special lay. Straying between infectious, aggressive, and defiant, he adds another dimension to said blueprint.  

The fire of their early singles continues on ‘Heart On My Sleeve’. Imbued with desperation and enthralled by sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll, Boyle lays bare troubled co-dependence with people and alcohol. His tortured soul, threatening to go under at several points, is made utterly engrossing by Breslin’s guitars. Then, on ‘Circles, ’ Breslin takes his live showmanship to the studio, and The K’s begin to shed the angst-ridden debut album skin. Breslin, so adept, finds a way to make The Courteeners and The Enemy sound like U2. Throw in Boyle’s lyrical desperation to succeed, his Madonna via Phil Spector Girl Group vocal, and The K’s life as a cinematic force has begun.

The transcendence continues the album's big set pieces. ‘Hoping Maybe’ grows with Andrew Cushin's aching beauty and a modern take on the crooning glee of ‘Coles Corner'-era Hawley. Breslin’s guitars shimmer in moonlight skies as the band steps into the mainstream with rock classism at its finest.

In the age of destructive post-punk, where vocals have been a blurred mesh of spoken word and snarling punk, The K’s emergence is a game changer. This change is cemented on the ‘Lights Go Down’. It is a big romantic musical number, the kind that dangles a carrot in the middle of the road to come into a more exciting world. From Burt Bacharach to Noel Gallagher, to Scott Walker, they’ve written a song which will play out to England’s glorious defeat in World Cups for years to come.

There's an aching amplitude flickering needles and hearts alike throughout this fine debut album. Boyle’s diary entry-style lyrics and Breslin’s soaring universality allow people to attach their meaning to their anthems. It's a different world to the one The Libertines launched into, but The Ks have given rock ‘n’ roll an emotive anchor to Arcadia once more.

The Libertines - All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade

After Hyde Park in 2014, nothing else truly mattered to the band's fans. When Pete Doherty entertained the crowd with a rendition of ‘Albion’ as security fixed the barriers, Carl Barat emerged to join him. To see them sing Babyshambles’ finest moment restored faith that they were friends once more.

Artwork courtesy of Tony Linkin.

*banner image credit: Ed Cooke

With kinship renewed, ‘Anthems of a Doomed Youth’ emerged a year later. Considering all the struggles, the band were in “bonus” territory with fans. After the tragedy of losing Amy Winehouse, fans could accept an album of some brilliance but largely mediocre songs in return for their existence.

Nine years on, Doherty’s sustained period of sobriety led to a sober writing session with Barat in the Caribbean. ‘All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade’ (EMI), their fourth studio album might be the one! Then Louis Theroux showcased a Doherty seemingly as lost now as he has ever been.

It’s the hope that kills you!  

Like the opening half of Anthems for a Doomed Youth, The Libertines again toy with their past on former singles ‘Run Run Run’, ‘The Night of the Hunter’, and ‘Shiver’. The first two tap into the glory and odious failure alike. Pete and Carl toy with their addiction (“It’s a lifelong project of a life on the lash. / I forgotten how to care but I’ll remember for cash”) to the sound of Phil Spector and The Ramones. They evoke images of Camden’s bedraggled glory, and as they attempt to escape their inevitable final destination, “gonna live like it’s the end / I love you to death, but I must suggest / You’d better run, run, run boy”). Despite the reference points, the band are firmly in the present for once and reinvigorated them beyond recognition, showing their growth and potential for the future.

‘The Night of the Hunter’, a Pete-penned track that used the Robert Mitchum film of the same name as inspiration, holds an unnerving mirror up to their career. Their ability to use Mitchum’s big bad wolf character as a metaphor for their past catching up with them is an anxiety attack wrapped up in great poetry and a Swan Lake-esque riff. A fog consumes Doherty’s vocal innocence; free from drugs, but not from his own mind. A lost soul forever?

Through even more stark reflection, their collective trauma is laid bare on ‘Shiver’. What was it for? Why did we bother? Identity crises are not to be underestimated for men in their 40s. Many men fall to suicide, failing to find answers to these questions. The bravery, the heart, and the sheer guts for this band to exist, let alone be great again (and they are), becomes sensory overload for anyone who cared for them when they decree:

“Shiver for the Albionay”

The intertwining of their dreams of Arcadia and the Monachy’s recent changes are laced with playful preposterousness on a career-best vocal from Doherty. Hushed and ethereal, he summons images of pained stares into a mirror rueing everything and yet, knowing if it hadn’t happened, those outcomes would have been worse:

“Reasons to stay alive / not to die at 25”.

Closure? Probably Not.

They have masterfully manipulated the world they created in the 00s into the modern day. At other points, they move out of that realm completely to become topical for the first time. ‘Merry Old England’ paints a picture of post-Brexit England, greying from Empire failure and welcoming (or not) immigrants to the sound of Doherty’s solo career and Richard Hawley’s beauty. ‘Be Young’ continues this newfound form, examining global warming with blistering Dave Davies guitars and a playful Specials ‘Blank Expression’ breakdown.

Elsewhere ‘Oh Sh*t’ roars to the surface with Jamie T’s ‘Zombie’, THe Pistols, and The Ramones in its heart. Barat’s vocal, a snarling Scott Walker, oozes charisma on this tale of chancers whilst the sonic explodes boisterously but forever playfully.

Is ‘All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade’ the classic that they should have written in their twenties? No, but for the first time in two decades of near misses and regret, they’ve steered the Albion ship in its direction. With sustained sobriety and strong allegiances, the modern-day Burton and Taylor are beginning to define in terms of glory rather than defeat.

It’s the hope that makes you feel alive!