Review Summary: Pete proves his career isn't dead just yet.
This year has been a brilliant improvement for Pete Doherty. No I don’t mean his life is complete or anything but he has finally started to make some steady improvements. He managed to dodge jail, progress greatly in going clean, improved his relationship with Kate Moss and made up with Carl Barat [yet somehow he
dropped from 8th to 28th on the NME cool list o noes!]. This year will be noted as one of the best in what can only be, hopefully, a brighter future for Mr. Doherty. Even though Pete hasn't accomplished much this year in the shape of music it IS the year that he left behind the Libertines for good. Babyshambles always seemed like Pete trying to re-live the glory days with The Libertines V2.0. However, with this EP he seems to have truly left The Libertines behind him and gone for a much more inventive and original approach on The Blinding. There are two songs you may have heard of this EP. The first is
Love You But You’re Green which has been recently released. The other is
Beg, Steal or Borrow which Pete played acoustically on several UK shows while promoting a festival performance they were doing. The latter of which is a far more interesting song but unfortunately the first is a more practical comparison to the rest of the EP.
Now, what makes this feel better than, their previous album,
Down In Albion is the feeling that Pete has finally let The Libertines go. Not only this but it is also seems more like an album [well I say album, this is very much an EP lasting a mere 17 minutes] than
Down In Albion which seemed more like a collection of songs. But after all that, this album certainly does have some flaws. As I just mentioned this EP is only 17 minutes; it is incredibly short. But to be fair, we really cannot complain about the length when a LP is expected from them in less than a years time.
The Blinding can also be rather repetitive and occasionally even bland at times. However, it is an energetic and creative album that shows hope for Pete’s career and proves to us that he is far from dead.
The EP kicks off with
The Blinding which, as much as I have said otherwise thus far, brings back memories of The Libertines. This track would be just at home on
Up The Bracket [but in a good way] with it’s swinging energy and somewhat ‘jerky’ playing. The song really is a good one and is really the only track that sticks out on this EP. We then travel through to the single,
Love You But You’re Green. This slows the album far down but to a pace that is not favourable of Doherty’s writing and seems a bit bland.
I Wish takes the same style of the previous song but adds tons of Reggae influence to it. This adds a far more energetic and upbeat feel to it but, to be honest, it’s still pretty bland. Then it’s on to
Beg, Steal or Borrow which was actually far better back when it was just Pete playing it acoustically. It suited the acoustic singer-songwriter feel much more but it is still a great song. The lyrics on this one are interesting and seem to be in the very open style of lyrics that Pete did on his collaboration with The Streets,
Prangin’ Out. The album finishes off with
Sedative which seems to have a very similar feel and just seems a bit dull and lifeless. Then it’s finished before it even began. A mere 17 minutes later and you’re wondering why your CD is so short. No it’s not the players fault this EP is authentically that short.
This is by no means a brilliant piece of work. This is an incredibly short and somewhat bland EP. However, this does show a lot of hope for Pete and The Babyshambles. Let’s hope he improves further on this next year with his new album and finally gets his life sorted. I really must apologise for the shortness of this review. With this being an EP, and a very short EP at that, there really isn’t much to write about =/.
