Over a decade after their heyday, the Libertines are still the only post-Britpop British indie band with an enduring mythology. That mythology began before the band even existed, written into being in Pete Doherty's journal. Like a lovelorn teenager, he scrawled "Doherty/Barât" across countless pages, in which he also laid out his and Carl Barât's poetic ambition: "To gain a measure of immortality in the plastic bubble of popular culture. A tricky task—unless one happens to be equipped with the belief, the talent, and the fervour."
Such was the price of admission into the world of the Libertines. You didn’t need a military jacket and crude tattoo stick'n'poked in a Camden bedsit, just the belief that belief itself was enough to transcend unfavorable circumstances, whether class or humdrum surrounds. They called this state of mind Albion, framed as a fantasy of a kinder England rooted in kitchen sink drama and Galton and Simpson comedies. But Doherty knew it couldn't last. "Look at the Sex Pistols," he said in 2002, before the Libertines had even released debut Up the Bracket. "They split up and there’s bitterness and sourness." He told Barât that they would meet the same fate, and they did. Their Albion became oblivion.
Considering the interim decade of hubris (Barât's truly awful solo records) and reckless devastation (the crimes resulting from Doherty's enduring addictions, now supposedly kicked), it's a huge surprise that the Libertines' unlikely third album doesn't reprise old glories. On Anthems for Doomed Youth, the immortal Albion dream is dead, their erstwhile fantasy mocked and incinerated like an effigy on bonfire night.
Anthems is littered with fragments of various past demos, but one old song appears wholesale. "You're My Waterloo" dates from 1999, a smoky piano ballad about the blossoming all-but-physical romance between Doherty and Barât. As lovely as it is, the intervening 16 years make tragic lines like "I'm so glad we know just what to do and everyone's going to be happy" just sound mawkish. Sharper is "Fame and Fortune", a shanty about Camden good old days that would be self-aggrandizing if it wasn't so self-mocking. "Dubloons down for a double bluff/ Dip your quill or your bleeding heart and sign there and there and there," Barât sings, sending up the naivete of bohemians doing business.
For fans, it's always galling to see a band dismiss the parts of their past that they fell in love with. But Anthems isn't bitter or dismissive. Opener "Barbarians" is a gimlet-eyed spaghetti western rallying optimism for the broken. Lifting the guitar from Sixpence None the Richer's "Kiss Me", the title track starts out as a grand proclamation about the futile spoils of war and revolution, espoused with Barât's typical camp flair. But then he shreds the glorious fantasy, revealing an ignominious reality with a comic turn of phrase: "In the pub that night, racking out the lines of shite/ Putting to right all of the world's great wrongs." When righteous belief is its own life force, an array of beer mats is as good a map to conquer as any.
There's no romance in the songs where the duo confront their demons (Barât has also struggled with addiction and depression), but they're still full of fight. On "Belly of the Beast", Doherty sounds as if he's trying to slap himself out of the fug with every syllable of "It was a smacked-up, cracked-up, bone shark smacked -down day." Single "Gunga Din" has a reggae lilt, and Doherty's portrait of the cycle of veins, drinks, panic, and suffering is flinty, in stark contrast with the chorus' sloppy, rueful rush about having weak moral fiber. On "Heart of the Matter", the guitars echo "Don't Look Back Into the Sun", but whereas that classic praised a chancer's luck, here the pair express sad surprise that they're still going, having made it this far on a "crooked little smile."
It's a reminder of the beguiling poetry of the Libertines, the world of Biggles and Bilo, ships and maidens, which they indulge on "Fury of Chonburi", a tale of conflicted, enduring devotion among "pig men" (their mutual pet name). It's one of the only ragers here, alongside "Glasgow Coma Scale Blues", tumbling pub rock with a brash theme tune quality. Anthems is an absorbing listen front to back, but lacks the iconoclasm of Up the Bracket and 2004's self-titled record. Still, it's rich with mood and gorgeous melodies, and a pervasive doomy streak. The record's two love songs that don't concern Pete'n'Carl are both PSAs about the danger of believing in eternity: "Iceman" showcases their Kinks-y knack for storytelling in an acoustic yarn about a figure best avoided; "Dead for Love" is affecting noir cabaret that warns that death is the only true forever.
Given how easy it is to hate what the Libertines became, it's strange how endearing they remain, how magnetic Barât and Doherty's deep, despairing love. And how successful: The music that the two frontmen made apart was often disappointing—Barât’s knees-up theatrics ("je regrette, je regrette that I haven’t had you yet") more than Doherty’s occasionally lovely work alone and with Babyshambles. Yet their enduring facility together—as much as their third record swears off such cosmic promise—is almost, just almost, enough to make you believe in soulmates.
