Album Review: Peter Doherty – Hamburg Demonstrations


hamburg-demonstrations



Just past the halfway mark on Peter Doherty’s second album Hamburg Demonstrations, a song called A Spy In The House Of Love embodies the Libertines man.

The archaic tap of a typewriter preludes the literary-referenced music; an addled Doherty calling out to the album’s producer ends it. You might as well have pushed the carriage return for him as he first keyed the lyrics, and been there at the studio while he laid the track down. Unscalable popstar barriers aren’t for Peter (as he’s known in his solemn solo guise). He’s down for baring all so you can leer a look.

Considering he’s flapped the Union Jack higher than anyone since Morrissey, the eyebrows arch at the album’s offshore title. They plateau when you realise he’s been living in Paris for the last few years, and isn’t quite as parochial as he used to be. The barn-dancing Hell To Pay At The Gates Of Heaven is a response to last year’s Bataclan attack in the French capital. Even if it exposes his vocal limits, it’s the most expressive he’s ever sounded on record and hard not to move to (and be moved by).

His reactive tongue doesn’t end there. Flags From The Old Regime is a paean to Amy Winehouse that could easily have been written with himself in mind. “You’ve been up for two nights/You’re stuck behind the door/Chewing off your jaw,” he sings in lullaby fluffiness. Winehouse posthumously pays back the compliment on the years-old Birdcage having been his Bernie to her Elton on this full-throttled duet with Suzi Martin. Hearing the line, “Only love can heal the sickness of celebrity,” you wonder did she have Doherty, a man at odds with fame, in mind as well?

Though it’s not like he’s blind to his stardom, or never attempted to lap at it. “There’s no immediate connection between this chorus and this verse/Keep the critics on their toes,” he eeks out on A Spy In The House Of Love, as blatant a press tease if ever there was one. At other moments he’s humble to those closer to home. Down For The Outing is boxed in offspring contrition. Apologies to the folks for the, “Good times that I’ve had/They made me look so bad,” has drug deliverance all over it.

I Don’t Love Anyone (But You’re Not Just Anyone) appears in two versions. The muffled beat that underpins the second one jumps his indie act forwards a good decade, just when you thought he was struggling to fully leave the more straightforward production he’s used to behind. But the biggest reveal comes on Oily Boker, a ballad that dines heavily on The LibertinesMusic When the Lights Go Out sweetness. “Still steadfast and strong/Remains my faith in song,” Doherty affirms.

And on this sentimental album of love, death and ghosts, he’s pulled that proof right off.

(Steven White)


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