I have a strange way of idolizing bands I’ve never heard. I’ll read a glowing review and get all excited, then another will work my hopes up and as the band grows to God-like stature before my eyes I start to realize that nothing could possibly live up to my expectations. For this reason I bought the Libertines’ 2003 debut album, “Up the Bracket,” and shelved it for approximately TEN MONTHS. You may think I’m crazy, but I’ve somehow managed to come up with a new excuse for my resistance every time I’ve tried to pull the damn thing out: it wasn’t the right time, I wasn’t in a listening mood, I had other new records to listen to first. Ultimately, what all of this amounted to was that, to me, the conditions were never quite right for the silent worship of the indisputable masterpiece that “Up the Bracket” was going to be – no, HAD to be, or else I might leap out the fourth-story window of Olin Library, utterly dejected at the realization that this album couldn’t be everything I’d hoped it to be.
Three weeks ago I finally removed the plastic wrap and popped the little wafer into my stereo, and whaddya know- the album is fooking brilliant, as one of the unreconstructed Cockney winos that make up the band might say. “Garage Rock” or punk or what have you, “Up the Bracket” is the most assuredly “rock and roll” album I’ve heard in at least two years. The Libertines mash the overhyped competition in the Saviors of Rock sweepstakes, not just anything the rather irrelevant Vines and Hives and the like have produced, but also the White Stripes’ “Elephant,” often regarded as the apex of a “movement” that most intelligent observers knew to be an industry ruse anyway.
As has been duly noted in the rock press, “Up the Bracket” was produced by Mick Jones, formerly of punk-rock heroes the Clash. Comparisons between the two bands, then, are inevitable and even apt. But while many bands take off from the eclectic rock-history tour de force that is “London Calling,” the Libertines opt for the compressed fury of the Clash’s eponymous 1977 debut. The trick these guys pull off (and it’s not an easy one) is to sound tightly wound and loose, even shambling, at the same time. The tautness is in the tunes, which charge ahead so quickly and effectively that half the time you don’t even know what hit you. The looseness is in the playing, most crucially the vocals, generally provided by lead throat Pete Doherty. This guy’s voice isn’t just rough; I mean, he makes Joe Strummer sound like Frank Sinatra. A real wonder of nature, Doherty cracks, slurs, sputters, runs over his words, mutters and yells like the last drunk in the bar, unaware that the party’s over even though he’s pissed himself and everybody’s looking at him funny. If you think this sounds a tad unappealing, trust me, just take a listen. Give him half a chance and I guarantee the poor sod will win you over.
That precarious balance between tight and loose, lockstep and shambles, standing bolt upright and falling on your fate is a feat few bands can pull off; the Stones are one successful example, and, heretic that I am, I’m not even sure about those guys sometimes. The title track of “Up the Bracket” is the one time the Libertines break into full-fledged anthemicism, and it’s a glorious thing to behold. Beaten and bloody but unflagging in his will, Doherty declaims over “Spanish Bombs” chord changes like his idols in 1977, and if you believe in rock and roll you’ll get chills every time you listen.
It’s unclear what the future will look like for the Libertines, but Doherty’s arrest last year for – get this – breaking into his bandmate Carl Barat’s apartment raised some serious doubts, and the subsequent revelation that he was battling a nasty crack habit certainly didn’t help. No matter: most bands would kill to have an album like “Up the Bracket” in their catalogue, and if this album is their only shining contribution to humanity, the Libertines can rest assured that they’ve done themselves proud.
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