Babyshambles

Babyshambles

Shotter’s Nation

(Astralwerks)

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Drug addiction, countless arrests, and an on-and-off romance with Kate Moss aside, Babyshambles frontman Pete Doherty sounds “frighteningly functional” on Shotter’s Nation, said Allan Jones in Uncut. The “extracurricular anarchy” that makes him a tabloid fixture is converted into “musical drama.” Doherty hasn’t exactly cleaned up his act, but producer Stephen Street, known for his work with the Smiths, has certainly polished it. He gives the record a “big, surging sound,” complete with “supernaturally bright guitars, walloping drums, upfront bass, choruses as big as houses.” Babyshambles sounds almost unrecognizable, said Alexis Petridis in the London Guardian. The “murky chaos” and recklessness of 2006’s Down in Albion “has been replaced by a sharp, very English-sounding garage rock.” Shotter’s Nation channels about every band in British pop-rock history: the Kinks, on “Delivery”; the Who, on “Deft Left Hand”; and the Rolling Stones, on “French Dog Blues.” Yet Doherty puts his stamp on every song, especially on standouts “There She Goes” and the “Lost Art of Murder.” Long gone is his “terrible, lethargic, defeated whine”; his voice is stronger, more consistent, and undoubtedly his own. If only he could get over himself, said Bret McCabe in The New York Sun. Hopeless with self-pity, the woe-is-Pete lyrics grow tiring. But Shotter’s Nation does suggest that Doherty’s best days ahead are “in the studio rather than in the gossip rags.”