Sonic Youth

When it was announced that Sonic Youth, having honoured their contract with Geffen Records, had signed with much-admired independent label Matador, many of us came to the same conclusion: after the concise, streamlined accessibility of 2006’s Rather Ripped, it was time for the Youth to renew their love affair with the underground and pursue the avant-garde aesthetic that first inspired them.

Well, you know what they say about assumptions. If anything, new album The Eternal is even more direct and straight-rocking than its predecessor, although it’s also scuzzier and more rough-edged: it’s what 1992’s Dirty might have sounded like without Butch Vig’s polished production.

Which mightn’t be the kind of thing many Youth fans want to hear: one of the most divisive moves they ever made was following their masterpiece Daydream Nation (a sprawling combination of avant-garde noise and hardcore punk) with the more succint Goo and Dirty, albums that stripped their tunes back and smoothed them out in an attempt to infiltrate the mainstream. Granted, the excellent Rather Ripped was a delightful reminder that these godfathers of alternative rock can write a killer tune when the mood takes them, but most of us were hoping that their next move would be a little more unconventional: after all, albums like Murray Street and Sonic Nurse had shown that, even in their third decade, the band could still write expansive, celestial guitar jams like no other.

Still, a Youth album is a Youth album, so let’s take it on its own terms. Opening track ‘Sacred Trickster’ should already be familiar: a short, sharp blast of brattish, Kim-fronted punk aggro propelled by  a chugging rhythm and guitars set to stun, it pretty much lays down the blueprint for what’s to follow. The guttural, grinding ‘Anti-Orgasm’ sees all three vocalists pitching in, with Thurston and Kim groaning together in suggestive unison, while ‘Calming The Snake’ is a sinister mix of screeching, discordant guitars and Kim’s pleading, echoing vocals. All three tracks are impressive, with a level of vitality and aggression that belies the group’s collective age, and they’re distinguished by the kind of superb drumming that reminds you how much of a relief it must be for Steve Shelley when the Youth decide to rock out. Similarly, Lee Ranaldo has often excelled with more conventional approaches to songcraft, and the tracks he takes lead on here – ‘What We Know’ and ‘Walkin Blue’ – reflect this, providing the album with a subtle but much needed dynamic shift.

Unfortunately, the formula wears mighty thin on other tracks, such as ‘Thunderclap (For Bobby Pyn)’ or ‘No Way’: there’s no shortage of energy, yet you still can’t shake the feeling that the band are going through the motions, knocking out tunes without really pushing themselves. The Eternal was apparently the result of short, sporadic sessions of writing and recording, and this no doubt contributes to the offhand feel of much of the material. Of course, that approach to recording has much to do with the fact that the Youth all have families and live in separate states, but one wonders how things could turn out if they got together and jammed out ideas in the studio as they did with 2002’s Murray Street.

It’s telling that the two best tracks on the album are marked by a slower, more considered tempo. ‘Antenna’ is a moody, stately reverie in the vein of ‘Unmade Bed’ or ‘The Diamond Sea’; while closing track ‘Massage The History’ is reminiscent of ‘Sympathy For The Strawberry’, an eerie, windswept soundscape framing Kim’s elegiac crooning (“Come with me to the other side/Not everyone makes it out alive”), interrupted midway through by a passage of vintage dissonant guitar squall.

On the whole though, there’s no mistaking the sense of anti-climax that surrounds The Eternal. Even the Youth’s more maligned albums had some sort of aesthetic or purpose, be it the fragmentary, lo-fi sound of Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star or the NYC/Beat tributes of NYC Ghosts & Flowers. This is arguably the first one that feels, well, unoriginal. And while there’s plenty of people who’d contend that they actually prefer the band in their more accessible guise, even they’d have to admit that there’s nothing here that packs the same sonic punch as a ‘100%’ or a ‘Sugar Kane’. A good album, not a great one, and it’s only because of the impeccable standards they’ve set that we expect greatness.

Our Brother The Native

Materialism? Secularism? Western consumerist culture? So overrated.

In recent years acts like Gang Gang Dance, Animal Collective and Liars have displayed a growing creative assimilation of elements of mysticism, tribalism or indeed animism, reflecting a back-to-nature aesthetic and a healthy interest in unfamiliar cultural practices. Disconcerting voodoo chanting, ritualistic textures, use of gamelan/steel pan instrumentation: this is the new sound of the indie underground, epitomised by albums like Here Comes the Indian or They Were Wrong, So We Drowned. As the title of their third album indicates, Our Brother The Native cover much of the same territory: their dark, sinister, often compelling music is a mixture of Javanese Gamelan influences, tribalistic chanting, unsettling found sounds, atmospheric drone and disconsolate lyrical mantras.

‘Well Bred’ makes for a gripping opening track, as an ethereal, hymn-like vocal gives way to an ominous rhythm while the almost incomprehensible vocals grow in intensity, a whole host of instruments and sounds submerged in the mix: tribal percussion, eerie glockenspiel, discordant sax á la Foals or TV On The Radio – it’s a heady brew, and one that evokes images of disquieting hoodoo rituals even as its lyrics make references to PHDs, BAs and doctors. The dark vibes continue into the succeeding tracks: ‘Manes’ combines scattered, pattering percussion with Animal Collective-like freak-folk vocals, while ‘Someday’ is better yet: at first a ghostly soundscape that would be almost ambient if it wasn’t for the mysterious sampled incantations that drift in and out of it, it slowly develops into a tune as a banjo picks out an insistent melody which culminates in a yearning, homesick refrain.

Although it’s no less odd – with its tropical vibe and out-of-focus production – ‘All Grown’ provides something of a change in tone, and not quite for the better: stripped of the forbidding instrumentation that until now cloaked them, the vocals seem overwrought and cloying, while the melody is banal. Thus, it comes as a relief when ‘Dusk’ follows it with a passage of disorientating, strangely beautiful ambience, interrupted sporadically by found sound, submersed melodies and dislocated drums. Elsewhere, the frantic ‘Child Banter’ recalls Liars’ more unhinged moments with its violent outbursts of guitar abuse.

However, towards the end of this album the less appealing aspects of Our Brother the Native’s aesthetic become more and more evident: their tendency to resort to sixth-form emo platitudes in their lyrics (e.g. “Cleanse these sores from my skin/Cleanse these sores/I just want to feel one last time” from ‘Sores’) can be ignored to a certain extent, but when the hypnotic density of their music falters somewhat, it becomes painfully evident. Combined with their relative lack of melodic nous and the aforementioned overemoting, it’s no surprise that the more conventional attempts at songcraft here, such as ‘Sores’ or ‘Behold’ are the tracks that impress least. Still, there’s plenty to love here: if Our Brother the Native focus on playing more to their strengths, there’s every chance they may yet be held in the same regard as their more lauded contemporaries.

Bill Callahan

Our top panel of Musos give their verdict on Bill Callahan’s latest effort.

RORY GIBB 1-3:

Bill Callahan’s album opening tracks are never anything less than spectacular; ‘Jim Cain’ is no exception, and sets the tone appropriately. A cascading guitar line ushers in a sweet plucked melody and his rich baritone: “I started tellin’ the story/Without knowing the end”. While 2007’s Woke On A Whaleheart explored surprisingly light territory, Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle comes in the wake of a break-up and sees a return to more contemplative form.

‘Eid Ma Clack Shaw’ is uncharacteristically personal – “Love is the king of the beasts/And when it gets hungry it must kill to eat” – and is as unsettling musically as lyrically, piano stabs and strumming offset by thumping bass ripped straight from ‘Psycho Killer’. Despite its thematic deviation, Sometimes… expands upon the fuller instrumentation of the last record and shuns the sparseness of Callahan’s early records as Smog. Deft string arrangements drift in and out, bolstered by washes of brass to create an early album highlight, and one of his finest songs yet.

Eastern melodies usher in ‘The Wind And The Dove’, building minor key tension until Callahan’s voice lifts above the chorus. This break in the clouds ends as suddenly as it arrives in a flurry of strings. Throughout Smog’s earlier albums his voice remained high above the mix, uncomfortably close, as though it came from inside your own head; here it weaves back and forth between guitar and string section, receding into the middle distance before swooping to the fore. The effect is to create a sense of fragile intimacy during the quieter moments, making those few louder moments all the more startling.

PETER HARRIS 4-6:

I can imagine Bill Callahan listening back to an early cut of ‘Rococo Zephyr’, muttering to himself “We’re gonna need a bigger intro” hence the welcome addition of the Jaws-theme-like stabs of ‘cello. The track has a forlorn romanticism about it and is filled with Callahan’s penchant for similes and metaphors based around nature. Warmth emanates from the tone, lyrics and melody of the song and isn’t dampened by Callahan’s reluctant optimism where he “used to be sorta blind, now I can sorta see.”

We’re in full on nature based allegory mode with ‘Too Many Birds’. Callahan uses a simple bird metaphor to convey a story of someone not being able to find a home which could easily sound trite coming from another artist but it’s Callahan’s knack for simple understatement that makes all of this successful. This is summed up in the use of a memorable lyrical mechanic where each repetition of a line adds a new word, evolving the meaning of said line at more than one stage.

‘My Friend’ surprises with an obtrusive, heavily pounded drum beat though Callahan still manages to instil a cosy warmth, growl-whispering that he will always love “my friend”, sounding, in the process, like stand-up Rich Hall’s redneck alter-ego, Otis Lee Crenshaw (look up Bag Lady on Youtube). I wonder if this track is meant for recently departed girlfriend, Joanna Newsom – does she know he loves her? Ys, I think she does.

THOMAS BOLTON 7-9:

‘All Thoughts Are Prey To Some Beast’ has real Smog-era atmosphere. Right from the first line, “The leafless tree looked like a brain”, you know this is going to be very good indeed. A yearning Morricone slide guitar is backed by rattling drums, while the lyrics are full of desert imagery, eagles shrieking, “the sky king” and “wings of bone”. Then halfway through, the electric guitar kicks in and Callahan is crooning “Sweet desire of soft thoughts return to me”. He doesn’t do straightforward meaning, but somehow you know he’s singing about being dead.

‘Invocation Of Ratiocination’ is a short instrumental track, with eerie, wordless, female voices wailing over some Michael Nyman piano and possibly a cricket chafing in the background. It doesn’t entirely justify its title. The final track, ‘Faith/Void’, is also simple but weighed down with more momentousness than any one track can handle. There’s something remarkably naïve and raw at the heart of Bill Callahan’s music that can be both repulsive as well as attractive and repulsive. Here he choruses, ‘It’s time to put God away’, over and over again during the course of 9.44 envervating minutes, making God sound strangely like a toy he’s been playing with.

Beautiful, but sickly, there’s something very off-putting about this song. I prefer his music when he takes a step back.

Scott Matthews - Elsewhere

I saw Scott Matthews in concert twice in quick succession in 2005, each time supporting Vijay Kishore.

Whilst it was clear that Kishore’s voice was good enough to make every single hair on your body stand up in pure exhilaration, it was equally clear that he didn’t match the song writing and guitar playing talents of Matthews. I spoke with Matthew’s manager at the second gig about the upcoming album, Passing Stranger, asking him if it was going to be as stripped down as the live show. He was very keen to explain that the album would have a much bigger sound which wasn’t the answer I was hoping for and whilst Passing Stranger was a generally pleasing debut, it felt that Matthew’s greatest strength of a striking voice with delicately plucked guitar combo, was swamped with needlessly big arrangements and heavy handed production.

I’m sorry and disappointed to reveal that album number two, Elsewhere, does little to re-address these issues. Matthews still seems reluctant to keep tracks simple, needlessly adding layers to promising track openings. ‘Up on the Hill’ is a perfect case in point, starting with a sumptuous intro and an engaging vocal melody which frustratingly becomes less interesting and memorable as the bass builds, the backing chorus builds, the drums build until the song becomes what is essentially filler.

It would seem that Mr Matthews has had his heart broken since his debut as lyrically, there’s a more cynical edge to proceedings which is also evident by a few track titles such as ‘Underlying Lie’, ‘Fractured’ and ‘Nothing’s Quite Right Here’ and it’s in opener ‘Underlying Lie’ where this broken heart spits some venom, “Spare me your bullshit”. The album feels a little overly angsty because of this and jars slightly with the music though Matthews does throw in some moments of light with album highlights ‘Suddenly You Figure Out’, ‘12 Harps’ and title track ‘Elsewhere’.

Matthews has scored an impressive coup, getting in Robert Plant, hot from his well regarded collaboration with Alison Krauss, to duet on ‘12 Harps’. Their voices work well together and though the song veers closely to “are you going to Scarborough fair?” type folk, it has a real charm that pushes it forward as a stand out. ‘Elsewhere’ though is exactly what Scott Matthews is all about, it’s just a shame he doesn’t seem to realise it. Musically, lyrically and thematically it’s the gem in this slightly tarnished crown.

Elsewhere is not a bad album by any means but the adjectives that come to mind to summarise it are of the variety that just don’t cut the mustard in a review – it’s pleasant, it’s nice but sadly it’s also unremarkable and underwhelming. Hopefully, Scott Matthews will gain some more confidence in his own abilities for album number three and make a true solo album.

We Were Promised Jetpacks

The album’s opening line of “Right foot, followed by your left foot” reminds us that there’s no shame in taking things back to basics.

In a year where critics can’t sling enough superlatives at the sonic inventions and electronic manipulations of acts like Fever Ray and Animal Collective, We Were Promised Jetpacks serve as a great reminder that bands are still wholly capable of just plugging in guitars, rocking out, and sounding perfectly good.

Opening track ‘It’s Thunder and It’s Lightning’ perfectly encapsulates everything there is to enjoy on this record as well as its frustrations. The main frustration, rife throughout the album, comes in the form of dull, lengthy build ups designed to create powerful pay-offs. The song swims around in a thin, dull texture for over two minutes until you’re positively aching for it to kick in proper but, when it does, the latter sections of the song demonstrate everything there is to like about We Were Promised Jetpacks. When the guitars finally crash in and the vocals really open up, it suddenly sounds stunning. And from thereon in, Jetpacks display a penchant for developing interesting song structures; morphing rhythms into continually evolving entities along with thick and interesting guitar interplay really making the most of the second guitar in a way many bands do not.

The lead single ‘Quiet Little Voices’ is the only track which maintains a constant full steam ahead momentum throughout its entirety and is especially welcome after a slight mid-album lull featuring the down-tempo arpeggios of ‘Conductor’ and the aimless noodling of ‘A Half Built House’. Adam Thomson puts in his best vocal performance of the album; his expansive bellow ringing out loudly and clearly, creating an impressively epic vocal line propelled by a relentless rhythm section. However, ‘Quiet Little Voices’ also happens to be the most two-dimensional song of the record with its rigid structure and big chorus complete with peppy (dare I say, clichéd?) woah-ah-uh-ohs.

Whilst I could be, perhaps rightly, berated for criticising ‘Quiet Little Voices’ for little more than having a distinctive chorus, it does stick out like a sore thumb in comparison to the more fluid and interesting song structures elsewhere on the album. Other tracks ebb and flow with no clear choruses or motifs to guide us around initial listens but are allowed to breathe and develop in their own interesting directions. In the context of the whole record, ‘Quiet Little Voices’ indeed sounds like the albums most powerful moment but, at the same time, just a touch unsophisticated and undoubtedly The Album’s Single.

One can’t help but wonder what We Were Promised Jetpacks would sound like if they took the sections of thick, abrasive guitar interplay and expanded them to create full songs rather than the fleeting pay-offs to overlong build-ups as they appear on the album. When Thomson completely unleashes his massive bellow to the backdrop of a wall of towering guitars is when the album truly shines. Sections of songs like ‘Short Bursts’ and ‘This Is My House, This Is My Home’ fully embrace and utilise this sort of texture to brilliant effect but, ultimately, such moments are infuriatingly rare. The listener can’t help but wish that We Were Promised Jetpacks would play to all their strengths simultaneously. Combining the full bodied guitar textures and soaring vocals of ‘Quiet Little Voices’ with the more interesting song constructions and arrangements found elsewhere on the album could have infinitely improved on what is already an enjoyable and solid debut.

White Rabbits

When I first heard this offering from White Rabbits I thought I was uninspired to write about it because it was around 1am and I’d had a long day of lounging, but with the help of second opinions from third parties and repeated next day listens I’ve realised it’s just because it’s incredibly dull.

The vocals are reminiscent of Razorlight in that they seem as slurred as possible while maintaining some slight coherence. The music is all very well put together; for instance on ‘Right Where They Left’ there’s a great little segue into a piano section that really seems like it’ll go somewhere and lift the track (and indeed the album) out of the rut it’s stuck in, but unfortunately not.

On other tracks, for instance ‘Lionesse’, there is a great spacey intro; think The Fragile-era Nine Inch Nails, but where Trent Reznor would have led somewhere with such an intro, White Rabbits just plateau, and frankly it’s disappointing.

Now, I’m a fan of laid back indie tunes, to a degree, but the whole of It’s Frightening is more than laid back - it’s lazy, verging on narcoleptic (not that narcoleptics are lazy, infact, the idea of a narcoleptic band is more exciting than this White Rabbits offering). One thing I can say is that this album is great to go to sleep to, I’ve tried it and it works, the downside is that this means there are no aural highlights, no big exciting moments to rouse you, just continual… meh (it’s a word… trust me).

By all means, check the album out, maybe I’m just hard to please, maybe I just need more excitement than the average bear, but for the love of God don’t listen to it when driving, or if you do, take regular breaks.

Kenickie - At The Club

So it’s early 1997. Oasis are a matter of months away from strapping Britpop to their motorbike and heaving its tired carcass over the metaphorical shark. Blur have already evolved their way out of the scene by indulging their Pavement fantasies on their eponymous classic. And Kenickie, with characteristically disastrous timing are about to unleash their debut album At The Club.

But we’ll disregard the inopportune timing of Lauren Laverne’s merry gang for now and concentrate on one of the best guitar pop records of the ’90s. Like 1977, which was released a year previously, At The Club is an album that could only have been made by teenagers. From start to finish, it’s a blast of pure youthful energy. It kicks off with ‘In Your Car’, an explosive precursor of things to come. What follows is a mix of shouty harmonies, playful pop fun, and smart-arsed soundbites.

The album calls to mind a lot of the best bands of the ’90s. For example, the squelchy synths on ‘Robot Song’ are reminiscent of the first Mansun record. What’s kept At The Club fresh in the 12 years since it’s release is the fact that Kenickie weren’t just magpies; they took the classics and put their unique Northern punk stamp on them. I mean, look at ‘PVC’. It’s Nirvana’s ‘Lithium’ in pigtails (which kind of explains why Courtney Love had a soft spot for Kenickie).

And then there’s Lauren Laverne’s lyrics, which aren’t a million miles away from Suede’s romanticising of trash life: “We dress cheap, we dress tacky”, “We’re on our backs looking up at the stars”. All this, and we haven’t even mentioned ‘Punka’, Kenickie’s undoubted high point. In fact, screw it, it’s most bands’ high point. A joyous, glitzy three minutes of complete ecstasy on the subject of punk puritanism, it satirises and glamorises all at once.

The album finishes off on a downbeat note. The stripped down ‘Acetone’ dispenses with the power chords and attitude for a surprisingly gorgeous tale of trying to “dodge the sick stains on the street”. Well, I say the album finishes there, but it doesn’t quite. Where Ash chose to end their debut album with a revolting recording of them throwing up, Kenickie show they are clearly a far more demure bunch. They finish matters with the comic japery of ‘Montrose Gimps it up for Charity’. The song is basically just a load of kids larking about in the studio having a right old laugh at each other, and is about the most appropriate conclusion to the album really.

With At The Club, Kenickie gave us one of indie’s great under-rated albums. Predictably, they ended up burning out within 18 months of its release. They managed just one more record, Get In, which was a far more laid-back affair which sold far fewer copies than it deserved. In reality though, there probably was anything they could do to save them from an unsympathetic record-buying public which, lest we forget, was just about to embrace the horrors of nu-metal.

This was the way Kenickie was always going to end, and was a far more fitting way to finish that limping to an insipid third, fourth and fifth record like a lot of their contemporaries did.

Wooden Shjips

San Francisco’s Wooden Shjips emerged on their first album with a manifesto for a simpler music. They had glimpsed the truth and it had two chords. Their first album charted the path to stoner nirvana through a set of tracks which all found their groove and stuck with it. And it really worked.

You’ll be delighted to hear that there has been no surprise change of direction, no loss of artistic confidence. Dos, from its no-nonsense title onwards, rolls on down the same road. This is the second instalment in an epic mission to blow minds and scorch souls.  If this sounds like a lack of imagination from the Shjips, it’s clear that they feel no need to improve on an already perfect formula. It’s very hard to argue with their judgement.

In interview they reference experimental minimalist composers such as Terry Riley and proto-punk guitar bands like the Stooges, The Seeds and the Thirteenth Floor Elevators. Minimalism has lent them its absolute focus on the sounds that matter, paring their music down to the bone. Proto-punk has contributed dirty, monothilic riffs that loom out of the speakers. Krautrock has also surely been involved, teaching them to play variations around the same structure over the course of 11.27 mins. And their music wouldn’t sound the way it does if they weren’t operating in the wake of doom rock drone merchants like Earth and Sunn.

Psych-rock petered out in the early 70s in a morass of self indulgence. Wooden Shjips have rewound the clock to the point when things started to go out of shape, and shown how it should have been done. The real secret to their music is its tight rhythm and shape. The songs on Dos have plenty of drive, powered by a Neu-style, chugging motorik beat. It’s all about the forward flow, whereas psych has a tendency to thow the beats out with the bathwater. This momentum makes Dos a deeply compelling record, matching rhythm with fuzz guitar solo-ing and a drone that powers its way deep inside your skull. Track range move from the thundering bass and disintegrating soloing of from ‘The Weight’ to pulsing Farfisa and sludge-mired guitars on ‘Fallin’.

It shouldn’t be this good, but I guarantee you’ll for the hypnotic spell of Dos. Wooden Shjips are playing the festival circuit this summer, and you couldn’t invent a better band for bopped down, zoned out, festival oneness.

The Thermals

New drummer, new record label, new album and a new fan!

The trio from Portland, Oregon have delivered a slice of alternative indie/punk with such verve, all wrapped up in infectious melodies, that stands out in a city already blessed with musical talent. Bursting into life with ‘When I Died’ the album quickly sets its stall out and is relentless in its pursuit of perfection. The album increases in pace with ‘We Were Sick’ and ‘I Let It Go’ whilst still offering unfettered moments of melodic joy.

A change of direction is afoot as things slow down as we enter the title track, ‘Now We Can See’. Starting off with the meaningless chorus, that sets up camp in your brain and will have you merrily singing along for the rest of the day, you began to wonder how good this album can get. ‘I Called Out Your Name’ sees the beginning of the closing stages and we get to hear the albums first great moment. Reminiscent of The Pixies, we get three minutes of pop perfection that is worthy of global adoration but is more likely to be ignored by the powers that be. It doesn’t seem to be of any consequence to The Thermals, as evidence suggests this is a band that thoroughly enjoys what they do and fame and fortune are of no importance.

‘Liquid In, Liquid Out’ has the band hitting their stride once again. Lyrically more astute than we’ve heard before, the band conjures up an image of early Weezer, fitting syllables cunningly, but never seriously, into the most simplest of melodies. The penultimate track is the highlight of an album already littered with greatness. With an opening line that simply breaks your heart, the song rises to heights of grandeur and sees The Thermals push the envelope further than ever before, and all in three and a half minutes.

On reflection the album easily surpasses your first thoughts during the opening seconds of ‘When I Died’ and should see the band standing shoulder to shoulder with neighbours The Shins and Modest Mouse. No idea is ever overplayed, with most songs running in at the three minute mark, with each second as important as the next to the album. Whilst you might feel short changed at the album running in at only 35 minutes at least you’ll know that those 35 minutes couldn’t have been better spent anywhere else!

Grace/Wastelands

The first sound that opens Grace/Wastelands, Peter Doherty’s first solo effort proper, is the click of plectrum on muted guitar strings and a hushed count-in. So far, so much like the various discs of demos self-released over the years since The Libertines imploded in a blaze of guardsmen’s jackets, fistfights and visions of England both crystal-sharp and pink-gin tinted. But something has changed: ‘Arcady’ is a song Peterphiles have heard countless times before, though it’s previously seemed aimless and unfocused, like it was being written and re-thought during its performance. Here, though, with producer Stephen Street and collaborator Graham Coxon, the songs have been finished, polished and rethought before recording.

This album, then, is the first Peter Doherty solo album – The Libertines and Babyshambles’ four studio records were definitely group efforts, with Doherty’s poetic side complimented and obscured by his erstwhile contributors. So what is the state of Albion? Pretty good, actually, to the shock of a good number of record critics. Grace/Wastelands has been praised for its sonic range, featuring cinematic strings, dub rhythms (including that reverb/delay drenched “distant horn” type noise that always seems to show up on any vaguely dubby sounding track) and even a jazz stomp on the excellent ‘Sweet By And By’.

And Doherty’s songs stand up very well generally; his favourite subject, the contrast of real-life Britain with the pastoral idyll of Albion is the subject of most of the tracks here – when he does stray to portraits of non-English subjects such as biblical stripper and renowned severed-head fan Salomé, it is through a Wildean cipher. But when the seam is so rich, why should we be upset when Doherty decides to stay inside his comfort zone? Especially when it produces songs like ‘1939 Returning,’ a beautiful and sorrowful effort that compares the experiences of soldiers and evacuees in the Second World War with what they’re doing now, where “pills aren’t the only blues”.

There are weak points: the only song with a Doherty/Barât credit here, ‘A Little Death Around the Eyes’ has a wonderfully menacing Scott Walker gloss on it, though one can’t quite imagine the patron saint of avant-garde music disguised as pop penning the couplet “Your boyfriend’s name was Dave/I was bold and brave”. It’s no punching a donkey in the streets of Galway, that’s for sure. And Doherty’s voice isn’t quite up to the demands some of the songs place on it, but it is a lot clearer and less incomprehensible than it has been previously, which is A Good Thing unless you can’t stand the sound of it, but one would wonder why you were listening, unless perhaps you were a Sun reporter determined to draw some sort of drug narrative out of it.

Ah yes. Drugs. The lesser cause of Doherty’s problems throughout his life (the greater being the media), and the reason he exists as a character rather than an artist and performer in the minds of most of the braying idiots who trample around being confused and angry. I was determined I would only mention them at the very end of the review, because they don’t need to be mentioned in the same breath as Peter Doherty anymore. With Grace/Wastelands, he has silenced his critics and done what his real function is. Not selling papers, not being the subject of tutted disdain at Daily Mail readers’ dinner and veiled race-hate parties, but making music, and bloody good music at that. Don’t Look Back Into the Sun, eh?