FEATURE:
Time for Heroes
The Libertines’ Remarkable Debut, Up the Bracket, at Twenty
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A hugely important album…
IN THIS PHOTO: The Libertines (from left to right: Pete Doherty, Carl Barât, Gary Powell and John Hassall)/PHOTO CREDIT: Eva Edsjö/Redferns
that still sound fresh today, The Libertines’ amazing debut, Up the Bracket, was released on 14th October, 2002. As it is twenty on Friday, I wanted to spend some time with it. The album reached thirty-five in the U.K. The album was part of a resurgence for the British Indie/Alternative scene. It was widely praised by critics upon its release, and Up the Bracket is considered one of the greatest albums of the 2000s. You can get the twentieth anniversary edition and enjoy a mighty album. So fresh and thrilling, the band, led by songwriters Carl Barât and Pete Doherty, put out a potent statement with their debut. Such an impressive and strong album from the London band, you can tell that so many bands that followed were moved by Up the Bracket. I am going to come to a couple of reviews for Up the Bracket. Before, Guitar.com celebrated and investigated The Libertines’ confident and compelling debut back in July. Still going today, I love the fact the band have survived turmoil and fall-out to stand strong and celebrate the twentieth anniversary strong. In fact, there are podcast episodes coming on Friday that takes us inside the album:
“Back in 2002, though, the Camden kings’ Anglo-leaning ethos set them apart from a set then spearheaded by The Strokes, one of most exciting new bands on the planet. The Libertines were nipping at the heels of Britpop’s heaviest hitters, ready to seize the torch from Oasis. They were fresh, determined and spoke to an unbridled hedonism that helped them earn the loyalty of their tribe. With their romantic veneration of Britain’s rock and literary canon, Pete Doherty, Carl Barât, John Hassall and Gary Powell were primed to become the country’s next obsession.
Marrying the blunt fury of The Clash with the poeticism of The Smiths, and the nicotine-stained thrill of early Suede with the pissed-at-the-piano rockney knees-ups of Chas & Dave, The Libertines were radically out of step with 2002’s musical landscape. Up the Bracket landed a year after The Strokes’ debut Is This It, which cemented the New York act as the most effortlessly cool on the scene. This was the Libertines’ response: with The Clash’s co-architect Mick Jones helming their debut (and Suede’s Bernard Butler producing the band’s non-album singles), Doherty, Barât and co were positioning themselves as the successors to the UK’s hallowed indie lineage.
Hoist the rigging
Clocking in at just over half an hour, Up the Bracket hit like a hurricane. Recorded mainly live, Barât and Doherty’s fuzz-soaked, galloping guitars ran roughshod over Hassall and Powell’s solid rhythm section. Throughout the album’s 12 tracks, the Libs’ leading lyricists painted a warring picture of twin dimensions of Britain. Their songs were set amid vomit-soaked pubs and featured street-stalking debt collectors, hotel room hook-ups, and ride-or-die debauchery. Barât and Doherty also conjured visions of a long-lost, half-dreamed, mythical Albion, particularly on their penultimate manifesto The Good Old Days.
Purposefully lo-fi, Barât and Doherty’s wilfully imprecise approach to guitar masked their true ability. Typically toting a Gibson Melody Maker (or SG), Barât’s penchant for seemingly spontaneous but actually well-mapped solos and riffs resulted in some of the record’s fiercest guitar work. Just listen to the white-knuckle closer I Get Along. Meanwhile, Doherty, then rarely seen without his Epiphone Coronet, demonstrated a remarkable aptitude for songcraft that underpins every minute of Up the Bracket.
Though the barbed wire riffage of Vertigo is an effective starting point, it’s on the album’s second track, Death on the Stairs, that the clearest indication of The Libertines’ musical and emotional breadth can be found. Built around a swerving chord sequence, Barât’s jibing A♯ riff keeps pace with the arrangement, as he and Doherty exchange lead vocals. The only let-up comes during the chorus section’s sublime six-note motif.
On the heels of the unrelenting Horror Show, the magisterial Time for Heroes bursts out of the speakers with punchy Smiths-esque chords, lurching from a bright D major to a troubled F♯m to a six-beat, punctuated G. The song’s intensity builds with each successive verse before it erupts with Barât’s frenzied solo. Yes, their exterior was rickety but any band that could pen a song as vital as Time for Heroes had to be worth your commitment.
The Libertines - Up The Bracket
The Libertines’ own distinct character is all over Up the Bracket but it’s an album clearly assembled from a well of influences. There’s the Clash-like truculence of the whirlwind title track, and the dreamy lull of Radio America, which elicits a misty image of Syd Barrett. Then there’s the bawdy strut of Boys in the Band, which The Libertines: Bound Together author Anthony Thornton describes as “The Jam soundtracking a late Carry On movie in a suitably saucy, British seaside-postcard kind of way”. Up The Bracket balanced thrilling bluntness with an astute grasp of what had gone before.
Though it reached only No. 35 in the UK album charts upon its release in October 2002, The Libertines’ growing ubiquity in the press would see its sales rise as the decade progressed. The band’s next two records featured delicacies of their own but it’s across Up The Bracket’s 12 songs that The Libertines skirted true greatness, even if it was always slightly out of reach.
Up the Bracket was the wake-up call that many of the soon-to-be players in what was called the ‘indie renaissance’ by some and ‘indie landfill’ by others desperately needed. Now established as The Libertines’ central text, Up The Bracket remains a rousing listen 20 years on”.
Regarded today as a classic of the ‘00s and one of the most influential British albums ever, I remember Up the Bracket coming out in 2002 and the reaction around me. At university, I can hear and feel how it resonated with people my age. Many British bands of the time were not getting great press in the U.S. Conversely, The Libertines were scoring a lot of love and respect from the American press. AllMusic, in a retrospective review, had this to say:
“The first British band to rival the garage rock revival sparked by the Strokes and White Stripes in the U.S., the Hives in Sweden, and the Datsuns in, er, New Zealand, the Libertines burst onto the scene with Up the Bracket, a debut album so confident and consistent that the easiest way to describe it is 2002's answer to Is This It. That's not just because singer/guitarist Pete Doherty's slurred, husky vocals sound like Julian Casablancas' with the added bonus of a fetching Cockney accent (or that both groups share the same tousled, denim-clad fashion sense); virtually every song on Up the Bracket is chock-full of the same kind of bouncy, aggressive guitars, expressive, economic drums, and irresistible hooks that made the Strokes' debut almost too catchy for the band's credibility. However, the resemblance is probably due more to the constant trading of musical ideas between the States and the U.K. than to bandwagon-jumping -- the Strokes' sound owes as much to Britpop sensations like Supergrass (who had the Libertines as their opening band on their 2002 U.K. tour) and Elastica as it does to American influences like the Stooges and the Velvet Underground. Likewise, the Libertines play fast and loose with four decades' worth of British rock history, mixing bits and bobs of British Invasion, mod, punk, and Britpop with the sound of their contemporaries.
On paper it sounds horribly calculated, but (also like the Strokes' debut) in practice it's at once fresh and familiar. Mick Jones' warm, not-too-rough, and not-too-polished production both emphasizes the pedigree of their sound and the originality of it: on songs like "Vertigo," "Death on the Stairs," and the excellent "Boys in the Band," the guitars switch between Merseybeat chime and a garagey churn as the vocals range from punk snarls to pristine British Invasion harmonies. Capable of bittersweet beauty on the folky, Beatlesque "Radio America" and pure attitude on "Horrorshow," the Libertines really shine when they mix the two approaches and let their ambitions lead the way. "Did you see the stylish kids in the riot?" begins "Time for Heroes," an oddly poetic mix of love and war that recalls the band's spiritual and sonic forefathers the Clash; "The Good Old Days" blends jazzy verses, martial choruses, and lyrics like "It's not about tenements and needles and all the evils in their eyes and the backs of their minds." On songs like these, "Tell the King," and "Up the Bracket," the group not only outdoes most of its peers but begins to reach the greatness of the Kinks, the Jam, and all the rest of the groups whose brilliant melodic abilities and satirical looks at British society paved the way. Though the album is a bit short at 36 minutes, that's long enough to make it a brilliant debut; the worst you can say about its weakest tracks is that they're really solid and catchy. Punk poets, lagered-up lads, London hipsters -- the Libertines play many different roles on Up the Bracket, all of which suit them to a tee. At this point in their career they're not as overhyped as many of their contemporaries, so enjoy them while they're still fresh”.
To finish off, I want to bring in Pitchfork’s assessment from 2003. Perhaps not quite aware of a sound like the one The Libertines produced in 2002, I guess The Strokes were the American forerunners who paved the way for bands like The Libertines. I just love that anyone can put on Up the Bracket now and feel instantly connected and affected by the album:
“And so it's come to pass: the great wheel of revivalism spins, dredging up the next phase of music history to be paraded about-- it was only a matter of time before we came around to The Clash. But just as calling The Clash "punk" belittles how their sound had evolved by the movement's curtain call, it would be unfairly dismissive to brand The Libertines Clash knock-offs. You'd have to throw in a line or two about singer Pete Doherty sounding uncannily like an English Julian Casablancas to be more dismissive. British Strokes for British folks, as they say.
All cards on the table, though: Up the Bracket does emulate, thanks in no small part to production care of ex-Clash founder Mick Jones, but it never truly imitates. Like The Clash before them, The Libertines draw primarily from decades of rock tradition-- blues, dub, a healthy whiff of the English countryside, and a few gorgeous rock riffs straight from the brainstem of Chuck Berry-- and fuse them into an unruly and triumphant monster of an album. The band burns through a range of emotions with fearless abandon, and just when one track seems about to split into pieces, they pull it all together only to threaten glorious collapse again on the next song. From their plaintive anthems to fuck-all barnburners, this is some of the most fun I've had with a CD in ages. Rarely does a band approach such a wide array of attitudes with equal proficiency.
"Boys in the Band" traverses miles of territory in four short minutes; funk-fused riffs lend a dangerous swagger to Doherty's ultra-confident vocals before, curiously, the whole thing pulls a 180 into barbershop-style harmonies. It's not as crazy as it sounds, but it's twice as fun. Later, the band find themselves in the throes of a token heartfelt ballad-- even one that delivers unexpected quaintness and delicate folk sensibilities-- as old-time cymbal washes make such an obvious track better than it has any right to be. But before the glow fades, they take us right back to hook-laden rock with the title song, recalling The Clash's finest moments, complete with vocals lifted from Joe Strummer's back pocket.
There's an almost indescribable wealth of rock lurking on Up the Bracket, and rarely is it less than blissfully entertaining. In just thirty-odd minutes, The Libertines pretty much do it all. Call it calculated, call it derivative-- hell, there's so much to this album, you can call it just about anything you like and probably not be too far from the truth-- but if you don't hear it, you'll be the one missing out”.
On Friday, there will be a lot of attention around The Libertines. The band have weathered storms and possible permanent split to regroup and release new material. Although nothing can quite match the brilliance of their debut, the band continued putting out such extraordinary music. From the spirited and rousing title track to the beautiful Radio America and the fan favourite Time for Heroes, there is not a weak moment on Up the Bracket. It is great to hear new music come out now but many people look fondly at groups like The Libertines emerging. Releasing one of thew all-time best debut albums back in 2002, many on Friday (on Up the Bracket’s twentieth anniversary) will fondly recall…
THE good old days!