You've got to hand it to Carl Barat. In the midst of all the tabloid scandals, the drug-fuelled tales of excess and the court appearances that his former band/best mate has been involved in, he's kept a dignified silence, refusing to pass judgement on Mr. Doherty's catastrophic fall from grace. Instead, he's kept his head down, assembled a musical clique from the debris of the Libertines and waited till now to pour his vitriol into his lyrics. Well, sort of. No doubt he'll deny that lines like 'Do you remember what I remember?/Lost pursuits of excellence/The glory of the crowd' and 'And the spectres in the masonry reminds us of things that might have been' are about 'a girl', but, to paraphrase the Mystery Jets, you can't fool us, Carl. In fact, though Waterloo to Anywhere is markedly different to Doherty's post-Libs output (i.e. it's actually tuneful), the Ghost of Glories Past looms large over much of its content. From the shuffling fuzz of opener Deadwood to the melodic, Cockney Rebel leer of B.U.R.M.A., WTA is replete with the urgent riffs, ska-tinged melodies and snarling vocals that Barat has always been masterful at churning out, but with one marked and obvious difference; it misses Doherty. Though the lyrics are sufficiently sharp, even caustic at times, they lack the flow and elegiac touch that the former brought to the partnership, hard as it may be to admit. The Clash are an obvious influence, as they always have been, and Waterloo.. adopts a similar jerky, robust, citified demeanour, Barat even sounding like Joe Strummer at times (the cumbersome, cliche-laden If You Love A Woman, the swaggering Gentry Cove), while the frenzied enthusiasm of You Fucking Love It's chorus will galvanize hipsters the length and breadth of the country this summer. When all is said and done, however, it's obvious that Dirty Pretty Things - a good band who've made a passable album - are not actually that special. Compare them to Babyshambles, comply with the cliches and regurgitate their history if you must; but ultimately there are other bands, and other albums more deserving of your time and money.
