Mentally, and as if from out of nowhere, The Libertines appear to have put all of their differences behind them, sort of, and pulled their shindig together enough to put out their third studio album, Anthems For Doomed Youth. Coming a massive eleven years after their 2004 self-titled swan song album, it’s one of music history’s most infamous hiatuses, but now they’re back and from the look of the video to lead track Gunga Din below they’re more of a unit than ever before.
The album will be making its way to a record store in the vicinity of your local fish and chip shop on CD and vinyl, along with digital download for the imaterialists of you, on the 4th September 2015. While time and vice have not necessarily been kind to them, it’s good to see them having a good time together again, whether it’s all for the camera or not. To be honest, we would have been happier if they’d just stayed together and been miserable in silence for the last eleven years if it had meant more of the gems that made Up The Bracket and The Libertines so great.
The new album will be available in twelve track standard issue or the sixteen track deluxe edition, which is a lot of songs for them to get it right on. There’s inevitably going to be at least a few less memorable songs in the mix, but hopefully there will be more that can draw parallels with the genius of Time For Heroes, Up The Bracket, Can’t Stand Me Now and What Became Of The Likely Lads.
Their reunion had been rumoured and talked about for a while following their split in 2004, but it wasn’t until their shows in 2010 and again in 2014 that we got to see them back in action again. However, with the news of Anthems For Doomed Youth we can definitely say that they’re back in full riot gear now and will be charging the terraces once again. For how long, we’re not too sure, but with the critical success of their previous shows and a pretty significant following they’ve got everything that’s needed to mount a full attack on the music charts.
The new material is also being met with a series of tour dates this year with gigs in Ibiza and Benidorm next week, classy, and a few more European shows later in the year. However, here on home soil they’ll be playing Leeds Festival on the 28th August and the Reading Festival on the 30th August 2015 before heading off to Lollapalooza Berlin on the 12th September and then to a couple of festival dates in Mexico in November. However, we’ll be surprised if a bigger UK tour isn’t announced before too long to support the release of the album.
A lot of the potential success of Anthems For Doomed Youth will rest on the material it contains and right now the only thing we have to go on is the relative merits of lead single, Gunga Din, which you can listen to with the music video below. The verse leans heavily on the stripped back ska side of the musical spectrum, which may not be what the indie-rock kids who loved them first time around were looking for in the first new material from The Libertines.
However, the chorus brings things back a little to their roots in early naughties British garage rock revival with musings on being a better man. There’s the same self scrutiny in the lyrics as in their original material and more than a little self indulgence in the video, but if we’re honest we found it difficult not to get swept up in. There’s an irreverence about it that’s as much a laugh as it is too late in the day.
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Gunga Din music video:
Anthems For Doomed Youth track list:
1. Barbarians
2. Gunga Din
3. Fame And Fortune
4. Anthem For Doomed Youth
5. You’re My Waterloo
6. Belly Of The Beast
7. Iceman
8. Heart Of The Matter
9. Fury Of Chonburi
10. The Milkman’s Horse
11. Glasgow Coma Scale Blues
12. Dead For Love
Additional deluxe edition tracks:
13. Love On The Dole
14. Bucket Shop
15. Lust Of The Libertines
16. Seven Deadly Sins
