The Libertines
Up the bracket

THE REVIEW

Before Pete Doherty kicks the bucket, completing his process of self-destruction and his questionable ambition to become a small Cobain of the British indie scene, I want to write something about him. Because I will suffer terribly when one morning, with the foul mood of someone who still curses the moment the alarm went off, I discover on a crowded bus from a "newspaper" like Leggo or Metro that the ex-heroin addict boyfriend of Kate Moss has died. Perhaps the suffering could be prolonged if the guy's fame had reached such a peak to give him the satisfaction of a small obituary on the entertainment page of Studio Aperto, with even the possibility of a little report analyzing the widespread drug use in the music world. It would be an unexpected success.

Now, what I want to communicate is that the guy has remarkable talent. Undoubtedly, his poses as a stereotypical bohemian rock star don't help to discover it. But it doesn't take long to realize it when you listen to him. Perhaps I don't know his solo work well enough and certainly don't know that of his ex-friend Carl Barat well enough to express a definitive judgment on their respective merits in creating a band like the Libertines and an album like “Up The Bracket.” What I can tell you with certainty is that Pete Doherty is throwing away a great gift. I realized this while letting myself be lulled by the dreamy melancholy of his “Albion,” best, in my opinion, only with guitar and voice. All this talent, this despair vainly flaunted, the love for music and performing make “Up The Bracket” an extremely special album. It alternates a frenzied punk attitude with the elegant sweetness of choruses with an almost Beatles-like flavor. Many have described the Libertines as a strange hybrid between the Clash and the Smiths. In a somewhat crude way, it can give the idea. From the opening track “Vertigo,” through the gems of “Death On The Stairs” and “Time For Heroes,” the whimsical ballad “Radio America,” the splendid “Tell The King,” concluding with the iconoclastic violence of “I Get Along,” “Up The Bracket” is a small masterpiece that has ignited many young people across the Channel and consecrated a young, masochistic, metropolitan poet.