Customer Reviews

Up the Bracket

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I was most excited about this album. The Libertines are my great hopes for this year and following the failures of my previous hopes for the next best thing (Terris, who just weren't commercial enough, and King Adora, whose album simply wasn't good enough) I thought it could be third time lucky. Their single What A Waster/I Get Along is surely the best debut single in a very long time, and the album's title track is equally brilliant, and with both making the Top 30, plus the album being produced by Mick Jones of The Clash, I was hoping for great things.

Well, to begin with, Up The Bracket bears very few surprises. This is a shambling, deliberately rawly-produced punk rock album as indicated by the singles. The songs comically but accurately portray London life (if you are someone like these guys, and let's face it, few people are).

The lumping of The Libertines with The Strokes, Hives et al in the garage-rock movement is, I feel, a little unfair. The Libertines sounds far rawer, edgier and punkier than any of these other bands. While The Strokes may be heavily influenced by punk, it is somewhat mislabelling them to call them a punk band, while for The Libertines it is not. The Libertines are also more exciting than any of these bands, I feel.

But can they carry it out over an album? The worry is that The Libertines' album tracks will not be half as good as their singles. Alarmingly, scanning the tracklist, only one half of their debut single is included: I Get Along. What A Waster not being included is on a par with Bohemian Rhapsody not being included on the US greatest hits of Queen: a travesty, it being The Libertines' best song.

Nevertheless, Up The Bracket is a promising album. Admittedly, its best songs are the singles: I Get Along - the most Strokes-esque song, but still a punkier, better version of them; and the title track, a fantastic, rousing punk number which almost makes up for the absence of What A Waster. The album tracks also are of good quality, however. The riff to Tell The King screams "quality"; Horrorshow is pleasingly fast, messy and catchy; and opener Vertigo, while starting out with a horrible country-meets-punk riff, sound improves into a singalong chorus. Boys In The Band is cheeky and catchy also, while Radio America is the album's oddity, the live-sounding Radio America, sounding all mid-American and folksy.

Many of these tracks sound less good on first play, but after two or three they become favourites which are great to singalong to. While Up The Bracket doesn't quite fulfil the greatness of the singles, it is still a promising album stuffed with quality which heralds a chance for punk to be revived. 3 1/2 stars.

Although I do not yet have the CD for these guys, I did just see them in concert, and all I can say is WOW!! They opened for Morrissey, and blew the crowd away. It was like seeing the Ramones for the first time. I hope this is the start of a new musical renaissance, which sees boybands and manufactured music fade, and a livelier music scene happen, with original sounds and high energy lyrics! If you like your music rebellious, in which you can ride along the tide of rebellion with the band rather than having it thrust in your face, this is your scene! Put this music to the test if you are about to hit the highway, the powder in the mountains, or bike through a canyon of double-decker buses! The party has begun-grab your leather jacket and hightops, and jump into the crowd!

I completely agree with alexliamw's excellent review of this album. When I first heard it I thought it was pretty average but the more I listen to it the more I find to like.

It's more rough and ready than the other other slightly mainstream sounding punk/rock bands that alexliamw mentions but that's my kind of thing - In fact it sometimes sounds as if the band only started practicing on their instruments a couple of months before recording the record...

This is a far from earth-shattering album but a very good debut. I'll give it a full 4 stars.

This CD has hardly left my CD player for the past month. After a month of the musical doldrums brought on by Joe Stummer's untimely death, the music of the Libertines has lifted my spirits. Their music has tremendous energy that recalls The Clash's London Calling era and The Jam. Produced by Mick Jones, he has left his mark all over it. If we can't have the Clash, at least they left some great followers in the Libertines.

A great listen all the way through. Give it time and they'll be playing sold out venues in the US...

Ah, the Libertines. Like the Santa Ana winds blew the stale smell of cigarettes and greasy chips in my face while watching episodes of "The Young Ones" in my bedroom adorned with old Jam posters. Ok, I was trying to get a vibe across. If you need it in spoon fed pap form...think Supergrass meets The Strokes produced by Paul Weller back in the Jam heyday. I got this cd in Tokyo and man did a big painful smile come across my face. From track one "Vertigo" all the way to track 12 "I get Along" which really busted me up since that track was also on their debut single "What a Waster". Although I loved Waster, I really thought "I get Along" was the killer track. Here, it has been slightly redone and has never sounded better. I can see how people might write these guys off as Jam rip-offs etc. But I see them as being more clever and cheeky for that. The lyrics are way better than they need to be and the craftsmanship is apparent in it's rawness and clarity. nothing overdone and overdubbed. Simply perfect if you ask me and since you won't, get this cd and judge for yourself. If you like these guys and wanna expand your brit-rock horizons may I offer up these deserving bands...1. The Datsuns"The Datsuns" 2. V Twin"The Blues is a Mindfield" 3. The Coral "The Coral" 4. Radio 4 5. Ikara Colt 6. The Beatings

The Libertines debut, UP THE BRACKET are a nice collection of punk rock songs a la The Clash! I really enjoy all the songs, especially VERTIGO, HORRORSHOW, UP THE BRACKET and GOOD OLD DAYS! GOOD PUNK ROCK MUSIC!!!!

This album is fantastic. Mountains of raw energy are packed into nearly every single song. I can't think of any tracks I consistently skip on the entire record. For some, it may be a little much. I stumbled on this band who is apparently well known in Britain through a list the Arctic Monkeys influences page. If you're looking for something similar to their ridiculously catchy choruses and relatively fun atmosphere, you may not love the Libertines. Still, Up the Bracket does have some killer verses and lyrics, as well as some interesting and versatile choruses and hooks. Some of the songs boarder on reckless sounding, but I think the "raw" recording style is well suited for their sound. Highly recommended.

What the Strokes' first album, Is This It? is to achieving American post-punk revival in the mainstream, Up the Bracket by the Libertines is the British equivalent of this mainstream punk resurgence. The difference, however, is that the Strokes still lean more often than not towards power-pop while the Libertines are punk-pop. Although this revival is done in such a way that it does not so much as lift from the past than tribute it by using the framework molded by such bands as the Jam and the Buzzcocks.

The best element at the Libertines' disposal may also be their worst enemy: the way that they can work a classic hook, or a superb chorus into a song, without forcing it on the listener, but rather inviting it. In other words, the pop elements are not overdone; and that, my friend, is what true pop-punk is about: not overdoing one or the other of the two genres. The bad side to this is that the Libertines can do this so swiftly that after a while that their attuned racket becomes predictable. As often they stick to a formula, although it may be their own formula, it's a formula nonetheless, and that renders it unsurprising.

Songs such as the opener, "Vertigo," and "Death on the Stairs," are both rising and melodic, featuring a nice drum stomp to them, and the third song, "Horrorshow," is a swaggering hard rocker. Yet, soon after that point, the album briefly takes a downturn. "Time for Heroes" and "Boys in the Band" may be even better than the average good song, yet they are also placed at a point in the album in which they should be filled with more ideas, instead of recycling the last few tracks' glories.

Yet, after the worst song on the album, in the un-kinetic, uninteresting and most of all sleepy "Radio America" comes the best song on the album, the trailblazing title track. This is the best example of everything that makes the Libertines work. With its chorus that is as head-boppin' and foot-tapping as it is rockin`, to the blitz dynamics of the band at its apex in knowing when to cut it loose and rock out. In the midst of it all is the slurring vocal of Pete Doherty, adding to the stylistic pot to make it a perfect song. This song, as well as pretty much the whole album, also shows the band as great songwriters. They may not always be poets, but they are indeed talented lyricists.

Unlike "Radio America," the similar slow-esque "Tell the King" shows the Libertines can work up a good amount of mood when they want to. Another standout track is " The Good Old Days," which provides both mood and rave-ups in the span of only three minutes.

Whether or not you have the bonus track editions or not (as some new editions have the single "What a Waster" and another song called "Mayday" that is unlisted on the artwork), the rest of the album is rather like the aforementioned tracks ("Time for Heroes" and "Boys in the Band"). They may work, but also do not take the band in any more unique directions for both them and the listener.

That is the Libertines in a nutshell: glory, glory, and hallelujah!


**** (Out of 5)