Heroin. Crack. Prison. GBH. Kate Moss. Riots. No-shows at gigs. Tabloid coverage. Burglary. Rehab. Pork pie hats. Peter Doherty's list of notorious dalliances is so long that most of us have lost sight of the reason we bothered with him in the first place: the music.
And yes, initially I had scant hope of BABYSHAMBLES ever amounting to a hill of beans. Carl Barat very publicly spoke of them as Doherty's "denial band" and the group's first incarnation during Pete's first estrangement from The Libertines ensured that the emphasis was firmly on the 'shambles' part of the group's moniker.
Of course, Doherty has continued to relentlessly court controversy ever since and in this sense you could argue he's also done himself no favours. Yes, his stock remains of value in the NME, his long-suffering fans have cut him more slack than any other revered rock stars have ever before been granted and the feeling remains that he still has it in him to attain the greatness he was feted for when The Libertines initially burst onto the scene.
So Babyshambles' debut album "Down In Albion" finally arrives after several false starts and the weight of expectation is potentially crushing this time around. Will it be an ignoble failure? Will it display missed opportunities galore, but luck upon some raggedly glorious moments en route or - shock horror - will it be the tour de force Doherty's legion of fans are convinced he can finally produce?
Well, while it's certainly not the latter, the good news is that it's considerably more focussed than many might have imagined and DOES indeed contain more than its' fair share of those patented scuffed-around-the-edges Doherty-penned gems. As with both Libs albums, Mick Jones' vibe-in-preference-to-precision production technique will sort the wheat from the chaff, but generally it's tidier than "The Libertines" and suggests that should he decide to emerge from the woods then Pete Doherty and his new cronies might actually have a positive future to embrace.
Before we get stuck into the songs per se, there's one myth I would like to have a crack (pardon me) at dispelling, though. Whether or not Patrick Walden, Drew McConnell and Adam Ficek are the yes men they are often painted in the press (and I personally doubt that, actually), one thing becomes clear on exposure to their contributions throughout "Down In Albion": whatever they may be, they are surely not talentless losers revolving around a talented, but unpredictable sun. Ficek's drumming is tight, aggressive and bang-on at all times, McConnell's bass playing is fluid, intelligent and convincing whether it's trebly and twangy ("Killamangiro") dubwise ("Sticks & Stones") and all points in between and while Walden is the typically mercurial, volatile lead guitarist with a seemingly short attention span, he is always distinctive and never unafraid to experiment.
"Down In Albion" opens with its' most talked-about track, "La Belle Et Le Bete", the one with Kate Moss featured 'duetting' with Doherty. It's not much of a duet really, as Moss simply purrs through the narcissistic "is she more beautiful than me?" line a number of times, but her presence alone adds an additional frisson of excitement to already interesting track which sounds roughly akin to Bill Sykes fronting The Stray Cats at an audition for "Fiddler On The Roof." And believe it or not, I actually mean that in a positive sense.
Elsewhere, parts of "Down In Albion" rock in typically diseased and cranky fashion. "Fuck Forever" is still a pretty decent stab at a fractious indie anthem with fractured shards of guitar from Walden and several telling, autobiographical Doherty lines including "I'm so clever, but clever ain't wise" and that pivotal "I can't tell between death or glory" kiss-off. "Pipedown", meanwhile, is every bit as addictive as its' self-explanatory lyrical content and has employs a nice cheeky snatch of The Stooges after Doherty sings the line "can you play 'No Fun'?" "8 Dead Boys", meanwhile, is probably the darkest, nastiest thing here, driven by a serrated Walden riff and an only-too-resonant chorus of "when it suits you, you're a friend of mine."
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Babyshambles can also cope surprisingly well with pithy, immediate pop tunes. Although it does expose some of Pete's vocal shortcomings, "The 32nd Of December" is hugely catchy and features a natty, indie-disco middle eight (something that, lest we forget, Pete Doherty actually still bothers with); "Loyalty Song" has tinkly glockenspiel, apparently reprises the harmonica-playing tramp who graced The Libertines' "Can't Stand Me Now" and soon gets right under your skin and while it finds Pete blatantly flaunting his dangerous preferences, "In Love With A Feeling" features one of Doherty's best choruses and some lovely, soulful guitar from Walden.
Inevitably, though, there are moments you wish Pete had left lying on the control room floor. A song like "Back From The Dead" is a low-watt indie-Motown makeweight however charitable you want to be; "What Katy Did Next" finds Doherty in will-this-do lyrical cliche mode ("There's a lesson I have learnt, you play with fire, you will get burnt" - you don't say Pete) and while I'm sure it was pure altruism that led Doherty to allowing his ex-cellmate General Santa to record "Pentonville", giving it elbow room on an important debut album is surely one indulgence too far.
"Down In Albion"s trio of key tracks, though, are surely "A'Rebours", "Albion" and "Up The Morning". "A'Rebours" is "against nature" in French and shares its' title with JK Huysmans' decadent novel which Dorian Gray reads in Oscar Wilde's "Portrait Of Dorian Gray". An obvious Doherty reference if ever there was one, its' lyrics contain several insights into Pete's self-destructive psyche ("If you really care for me, Christ knows you'll leave me be" and "I defy you all, you know twice as much as nothing at all" both speak volumes) and it's set to a rollicking good tune launched by McConnell's punchy bassline.
"Albion", is, of course, the one Doherty's been holding back for a rainy day and is very much the embodiment of his whole Arcadia myth. It's every bit as shaky, opiated and idiosyncratic as the best of Doherty's output, but undeniably great and its' imagery veers from William Blake-style lines ("Talk over gin in teacups and leaves on the lawn") to the Morrissey-esque ("we could go to Deptford, Catford, Watford, Digbeth, Mansfield") as the band set up a suitably nostalgic, melancholic air for their sozzled leader. If anything, though, "Up The Morning" (recorded, suitably, at 4 AM) is the most interesting song here. It begins as a load of apparently aimless dicking about, but gradually martials its' resources and shapes itself as a truly haunting epic of a thing which proves beyond doubt that there's talent in them their veins should they remain clean enough to function.
So there you have it. Babyshambles' long-awaited debut comes bearing the expected scars, spots and misfires, but it's certainly not devoid of glory either and suggests Peter Doherty's visions of that mythical Arcadia might yet amount to much more than simply a cheap holiday in a tortured soul's misery.
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