Babyshambles: Shotter's Nation : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

It's hard to imagine how Babyshambles' Pete Doherty could write a song as great as "Deft Left Hand" and then hide it at the end of his new album. But then, many things about Pete Doherty are hard to imagine. On Shotter's Nation, the Brit-punk rogue sounds light-hearted, strumming through an assortment of Clash-and-Kinks-style hooks. "You went from cheery vagabondage to cold-blooded luxury in four years," Doherty warbles in "Deft Left Hand." Is he singing to Kate Moss? To his own drug habit? Or to his former musical soul mates, the Libertines? Either way, he's got more solid songs here than he did on the first Babyshambles album, Down in Albion (though not nearly as many as his former partner in the Libertines, Carl Barat, had on his superb Dirty Pretty Things album, Waterloo to Anywhere). "Delivery" is a giddy fantasy about dropping out of school to "make pretend it's 1969 forever," while "Carry On up the Morning," "Side of the Road" and "Baddie's Boogie" are equally ace. And to balance things out, Sixties folk legend Bert Jansch guests on "The Lost Art of Murder," adding a touch of acoustic regret.