Photo: Press
Coming 7 years after his debut solo album, and via what is these days an ever slowing Peter Doherty merry-go-round, the Bard of Albion returns with another rag-bag assortment of ditties referencing the same old same olds of life’s underground at the more challenging or dirty end. His music, just like his life, love it or hate it, either wallows in the darkness or shines bright like an eternal falling star – poetic none-the-less.
From The Libertines’ cluttered but at times fiery debut Up the Bracket to last year’s comeback Anthems for Doomed Youth, via the decent Down in Albion and the well-studied Grace / Wastelands, Hamburg Demonstrations though patchy at times again shows Doherty more or less in a favourable light.
'Hell To Pay At the Gates Of Heaven' sees Doherty at his most pensive - inspired by the horrific Bataclan terrorist attacks in 2015, it clearly demonstrates his love for Paris – and as it should given that the City of Light is his home these days. Current single 'I Don’t Love Anyone (But You’re Not Just Anyone)' randomly features on the album as two different versions, and coupled with a revised version of Amy Winehouse tribute ‘Flags From The Old Regime’, Doherty is still a one for the adlib, just as much he is for whimsy.
'Kolly Kibber' and 'She Is Far' are songs that both peak above the parapet and display the pure Doherty of old - the former referencing Graham Green’s flick knife romp Brighton Rock, whilst the latter is another beautiful standout somewhere up there in the thoughtful zone like his 'Flags of the Old Regime'.
With a career that is almost two decades old, Doherty is for sure a pivotal link in the British pop chain, whether drawing heavily on classic and obvious influences ranging from the likes of Peter Perrett’s The Only Ones to the more mainstream Ray Davies and the Kinks, or in turn influencing less successful, young pretenders like The View and the more recent identikit copyists The Jacques the scope of this man’s career is a tale of light and shade with the occasional projectile goblet of colour splattered in the face of ordinariness.
Like each album, each chapter of his life has its own idiosyncrasies but to whatever end always the same line that meanders between carelessness and carefulness. Doherty has always been in the dole queue as much as he has had a reservation for the chef’s table. And has straddled underachievement like some kind of Greek deity.
In terms of weight, Hamburg Demonstrations carries the same of what has come before, and like Doherty’s life it’s as good as it is absurd. It is deep, dark, thoughtful and upsetting in a Peaky Blinders kind of way. And at times it is plain and bitty too. Overall a fair to middling album that like Doherty himself, is essentially as honest as it is random. For the fans and the curious.
