Ah, as the world turns, the Pete Doherty and Carl Barât soap opera continues. Welcome to part two of the post-Libertines docudrama, with Barât's Waterloo to Anywhere coming out firing after a relatively non-confrontational Babyshambles debut by Doherty. The star-crossed duo's received their share of binaries-- Lennon/McCartney, Jekyll/Hyde, Libertine/actual libertine-- and the level-headed Barât lives up to most of them both musically and behaviorally on his new band's debut. Except, boy, is he pissed. While Barât retains the characteristically jolly bounce in his step, acrid one-liners and vengeful, ambitious anthems pepper this otherwise velvety, matter-of-course effort.
Drama aside, music chemists will love the almost formulaic extraction of Barât's half of the Libertines sound into its own element. Doherty always possessed the knack for the home-run track (see "Time for Heroes", "Up the Bracket") while Barât laid down consistently wonderful album tracks ("Vertigo", "Death on the Stairs"). It's no surprise then that nothing from Dirty Pretty Things holds up compared to Babyshambles' massive "Fuck Forever", yet the consistent Waterloo is devoid of Down in Albion's glaring blemishes. Opener "Deadwood" initiates a foppish bounce that spills over into most of the album. The ghost of the Clash still permeates Barât's multi-faceted post-Britpop songwriting, though a cleaner atmosphere (Jet and Oasis producer Dave Sardy applies some commercial L.A. magic) and theatrical yen steers many songs into Pulp or even Smiths territory.
Speaking of theatre, did I mention Barât's a tad tetchy these days? Seems every track the dude's dropping low-brow Shakespeare. For example, take a guess at who first single "Bang Bang You're Dead"'s directed. "Blood Thirsty Bastards" hunts the "sycophants," "vampires," and "zombies" who've fed off Barât's hard work, and in soliloquy "Gin and Milk" he opines how "no one's too perturbed/ About the things that I would cry for." Thankfully the guy's got enough awesome new chums to self-deprecate on bubbly tongue-in-cheek stomper "The Enemy": "The enemy, as I know it/ Is right inside my head."
Blame it on Franz Ferdinand's show-stopping panache or the Futureheads/Maxïmo Park bloc of breakneck post-punks, but oftentimes Barât seemingly plays catch-up with a rapidly evolving Brit-rock scene that left him for dead with the rest of the Libertines in 2004. At times too sprawling/self-important (e.g. "Last of the Small Town Playboys") or self-consciously dirty (short-armed Buzzcocks clone "You Fucking Love It"), there's a sad sense Barât's window of opportunity has been at least partially obstructed, if not totally closed. For what it's worth, Waterloo goes round-for-round with Doherty's solo vehicle, but too much of its pop luster succumbs to could've/should've-been pathos, both lyrically and musically.
