Safely away from the dank early 2000s tenements of London’s East End and closer to home than the Thai setting of ‘Anthems For Doomed Youth’, The Libertines fourth album ‘All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade’ sees the four dapper carousers holed up inside their Albion Rooms hotel and recording studio in Margate, an outpost corner of England that’s as close to their romanticised, arcadian vision of old Albion as exists in reality, all cockney accents, fish and chip shops, market stalls, carousels and salty shorelines.
Aside from the touring circuit and lucrative festival dates, new music-wise the group have been silent for nine years now and with a profile arguably grander than their former three album legacy and their cherished nation currently up the swanny it feels as if the band have something to prove with album number four, and by god do they do a grand job of proving it!
A schizophrenic war has always been at the heart of The Libertines, their output summed up by two of this record’s lyrics – “It’s a lifelong project of a life on the lash” (Run Run Run) and “With the chalk cliffs once white, they’re greying in the sodium light” (Merry Old England), a push and pull between limitless hedonistic excess and the telling of valuable stories from behind Britain’s closed living room curtains or sticky pub barstools, as well as a similar tug of war between their celebratory skiffle punk clamour and fragile acoustical melodies, not to mention the literal microphone grab between frontmen Carl Barat and Peter Doherty. ‘All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade’ manages to find enraptured peace on all counts, a notion summed up by the LP’s title.
When asked about the record during it’s formative stages the group stated it may end up as their version of ‘Sandinista!’. Whilst not as sprawling as The Clash’s infamous triple LP, the mass of overt styles is here, only filtered down to eleven solid compositions, each one amongst the finest the band has penned to date.
The bold punk singles are on show and set apart, ‘Run Run Run’ and ‘Oh Shit!’ making no pretensions at being anything other than concise, blatant hook spattered raucous rock songs about booze and love and money, ‘Mustang’ is a 1960s Rolling Stones rock’n’roll-like social commentary peer into the life of kitchen sink characters Traci, a Juicy Couture tracksuit wearing mother who “Likes a drinky when the kids are at school” and the pious Sister Mary who “shivers at the touch of the Lord”, both spending their nights away in fantasy, “riding Mustangs through her dreams”. ‘I Have A Friend’ and ‘Be Young’ both nimble and lyrically dense, attempting to suss out the war torn outside world and the state of rock’n’roll culture: “There’s no wandering away/ From total and utter fucking annihilation”.
Going beyond their fragilely strummed tunefulness and piano paeans, some of the songs here wander entirely into the eclectic realms of classical music and bar-room jazz, ‘Night Of The Hunter’ using theremin and Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake to tell a murderer’s regret-tainted story, ‘Baron’s Claw’ using jazz trumpet and the name of the signature move of former wrestler Baron von Raschke to paint the picture of a lofty, mysterious individual equal parts altruistic and shady who is only ever witnessed through hushed tales and rumour.
The album has a trinity of crucial moments: starting with ‘Man With The Melody’, the first official Libertines song on a proper legit release penned by bassist John Hassall, a lilting Beatles melody featuring vocals from all four members, drummer Gary Powell included, more than a nod to the group’s current united front. Then there’s ‘Merry Old England’, the band roping in a choir to empathise with refugees rushing across the channel from Calais, asking either sardonically or naively of the crisp packets and puddles on the ground, “Is it everything that you dreamed of?”. The final is ‘Shiver’, a widescreen stirring melancholic discourse on the chilling state of Britain after Brexit, the death of the Queen and the coronation of the King. Musical boundaries are extinguished and topics they’ve flirted with throughout their vocation are dealt with astutely and head on.
‘Songs They Never Play On The Radio’, with it’s title cribbed from James Young’s book about life on the road with The Velvet Underground collaborator and original chanteuse Nico, contains one of the record’s most relatable lyrics with Doherty quipping “Men of my class/ we live too fast/ and we can’t be arsed/ and we batten down the hatches” next to lines observing the cash-depleting effect streaming has had on the music industry, adorned with luscious strings and another well placed backing choir creating an elegiac outro for their most accomplished work yet.
For The Libertines to truly be the band their twenty year narrative has boasted them to be – a Union Flag draped scruffy celebration of the pomp, splendour, spit and squalor of Britishness, this album, a clear-headed appraisal of their beloved imperfect isles complete with unequivocal anthems and sure-fire arena worthy hits needed to exist in their catalogue. Along with their classic debut album ‘Up The Bracket‘, consider Arcadia satisfyingly top and tailed.
‘All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade’ was released on 5th April through EMI records. It was produced by Dimitri Tikovoï and you can find it on all streaming platforms or you can buy it on all manner of crazy formats. Purchasing it will also get you the unreleased bonus track ‘Last Feel-Good Song Of The Summer’ as well as demos from the band’s demo recording sessions in Jamaica and Normandy.
‘Merry Old England’ was released as a single a couple of days before the album and has a powerful video to go along with it. Have a watch of it below:
Edge of Arcady 