A little Dirty, but worth the ride
You could ink the amount of press former Libertine Carl Barat has received with a dainty Papermate, while his old bandmate Pete Doherty would need a brush and a few buckets of paint. That's the nature of things: Doherty's rap sheet expands with each day that he cheats death, and Barat goes about things with fewer fires.
But here's the rub: Doherty's Babyshambles scored more attention for a half-good, half-dreadful debut album than Barat has for his half- really good, half middling debut album with Dirty Pretty Things.
It's too bad, too, because
Waterloo to Anywhere is spilling with swagger (especially in its opening three songs), something missing in the muck of Babyshambles' scattered
Down in Albion.
Deadwood rides a confident riff and slurry vocal. It's ragged without jumping the rails, defined by sloppy guitars and perfectly peppered with hand claps.
A sly guitar solo sparks into an unexpected fire on
Gin & Milk, a tune on which Barat asks repeatedly, "give me something to die for.''
Bang Bang You're Dead has a strong and hooky vocal, though it should be docked for pinching shamefully from the Libs'
Boys in the Band.
It doesn't all work.
The Gentry Cove, which starts promisingly with a ska beat and a Middle Eastern-sounding guitar, ends up flopping around like a Pogues reject. After a few other forgettable cuts,
Last of the Small Town Playboys wraps things up with a persistent guitar line.
At 33 minutes,
Waterloo burns bright and fast. Sure, Doherty is more entertaining if you're reading. But boil it down to the music, and Barat serves up Libs-like rock without excuses, without asterisks, without the romance of doom.
On the cheap: Download Deadwood, Gin & Milk.
By Jeff Miers
Source:
Houston Chronicle
