Babyshambles - 'Down In Albion' (Rough Trade) Released 14/11/05

Faced with the prospect of the world moving onto another rock hero/villain everyone’s favourite voice of a generation - called a talentless, crackhead waster by some - gets his arse in gear and puts an album out. It becomes quickly apparent Doherty hasn’t lost his eloquence and knack for storytelling but his attention has turned to the darker side of old Albion. The fresh-faced, stylish kids in the riot have now done hard time and are lying in the gutter desperate for a fix.

The first half of the album is filled with anger, energy and the soap-opera side of Pete: ‘La belle et le bete’ and more obviously ‘What Katie Did Next’ about his relationship with Ms Moss, ‘A’rebours’ and ‘Pipedown’ seem be about his battle with the ease of addiction against the pain of creation while ‘Sticks and Stones’ tackles his hate/hate relationship with the tabloids. Half way through it all quietens down and becomes more reflective, almost as if he has had all his energy sapped out on the likes of ‘Back from the Dead’ and upcoming single ‘Albion’ and the music suffers as a result, but the songs are linked throughout by bitterness. His knack for pop can still be seen on the previous singles ‘Killamangiro’ and ‘**** Forever’ but beyond these there are few gems.

It’s a dark piece of work and you can here on the record Pete fighting his demons, be they the tabloids or more internal. When he sings: "Got to choose between death and glory/One and the same", it's as if he is looking at if he wants that voice of a generation respect, to have long winded testimonials written about him in UNCUT in 20 years time, is he expected to neatly die and not sort himself out?

Down but not out, not brilliant and not rubbish, you get the impression he needed to write an album like this as a kind of catharsis, but it still remains to be seen whether he can do any better, or if the drugs, hype and hypocrisy of the mass media have drained his artistic reserves.