(Arcady,2010)
Carl Barât is the forthcoming debut solo album by Libertines frontman Carl Barât. It's scheduled for release on October 4th, 2010 in the UK. It'll will be the first album released through his own self funded record label 'Arcady'.
If one compares the occasional raggedy magic of Babyshambles with the more prosaic virtues of Dirty Pretty Things, there's no denying that Carl Barât lacks some of Pete Doherty's insouciant outlaw charm.
But with this impressive first full-length solo offering, the more steady-footed of the Libertines frontmen demonstrates he has the depth to develop furthest beyond their shared original musical vision. Not to mention the ruthlessness to pursue his own course, finally acknowledging that "the democracy thing" of bands "doesn't really work".
Rather than relying largely on sheer inspiration, as one suspects is Doherty's modus operandi, Barât has clearly laboured long and hard to build these songs into substantial pieces, working with some intriguing co-writers – notably Neil Hannon on the cabaret-style epic "The Fall" – to expand in a diverse range of interesting directions. Key to the project's success was the recruitment of hot young producer Leo Abrahams, whose recent experience with such distinctively British talents as Brian Eno, Chris Difford, Ed Harcourt, David Holmes and Brett Anderson made him the perfect choice to reveal the inner workings of Barât's songs. The result is an album with a strong sense of culture and heritage, and a variety of very British modes, from the Jam-style pumping bass and brass of the single "Run with the Boys" to the more elegant Scott Walker-esque arrangement of "Je Regrette, Je Regrette", which sounds closer to The Last Shadow Puppets than The Libertines.
In both cases, he's managed to retain a certain devilment, in the latter regretting that "I haven't had you yet", while the former marvels at the youthful capacity for dissolution: "Run with the boys night after night/ How do our candles still burn bright in the morning?". "Carve My Name" tackles similar themes in a more reflective manner, with a gentle lilt of piano and strings accompanying Barât's wistful recollections of how he "carved my name over the livers of my lovers, the wives of all my brothers – forgive me, love". As he admits over the waspish funfair strains of the opening track "The Magus", "men can be animals, savages and cannibals, so keep your wits about you".
There's a definite sense of a narrative arc about the songs, which as the album nears its end, becomes increasingly shrouded in regret, with the poignant orchestration of "What Have I Done" giving way to the mournful "Shadows Fall", with crepuscular trumpet limping over sad European-movie strings, and finally submerging beneath the lowering horns of "Ode to a Girl", in which the faint, twinkling drops of celesta resound like the last echoes of futile hope. The songcraft throughout is skilfully effected for the most part, with only the pedestrian "So Long, My Lover" lumbering too laboriously along – and there are some genuine flashes of inspiration, like the flamencoid flourishes that give "She's Something" the kind of tone the Manics might adopt for a song about the Spanish Civil War. An unexpected delight.
The Independent
Reviewed by Andy Gill
