Peter Doherty and Frédéric Lo - The Fantasy Life Of Poetry and Crime

Question: When did we stop worrying about Peter Doherty? Answer: 2014.

Since their permanent reformation eight years ago, we have been led to believe that The Libertines have arrived at the happy ending their soap opera demanded.

The narrative suggests that they’ve sailed on the Good Ship Albion to Margate, where they joyfully fill the days in their hotel with antics and capers, generally having a Jolly Old Time.

Or so we must presume, as we haven’t had a crotchet of new music in seven years. The tours are all well and good lads, but we did not have you down as a nostalgia act.

Yet it seems we’ve taken our eye off the bigger problems: Doherty’s disarming honesty was always one his redeeming features, and time has not weathered it as he reveals frankly (in the PR for this album) that he has been clean for just over two years.

Great news to be sure, and we wish him all the best in his continued quest, but that’s still relatively recent and merely serves to highlight the very nature of addiction: it’s an ever-present thing.

‘You Can’t Keep It From Me Forever’, the best song on this new album, is Doherty distilled; one of the best things he’s put his name to (and there’s been many; his prolificity is another strength), it’s an incredibly catchy, upbeat indie pop song…about drugs.

https://www.live4ever.uk.com/2022/03/review-peter-doherty-and-frederic-lo/