Grace/Wastelands is credited to
Peter Doherty, not Pete, and that extra R isn't just an affectation. The formal version of his name fits his first solo album's reflective viewpoint --
Doherty turned 30 shortly before it was released, and its maturity feels like a conscious, and necessary, retreat from the chaos surrounding his music with
Babyshambles. Even the title
Grace/Wastelands feels like a slightly more grown-up take on the wordplay he's used to find that fine line between poetic beauty and destruction since
the Libertines. This is easily the best-sounding album
Doherty has been involved with, neither self-consciously "raw" nor overly polished; it lets the music be as simple or as elaborate as it needs to be.
Doherty reunited with
Shotter's Nation producer
Stephen Street for this set, and
Street recruited
Blur's
Graham Coxon to play guitar on almost every track here.
Coxon and
Doherty are an inspired pairing, not just because
Coxon is a brilliant guitarist, but because he's also struggled with substance abuse (though he was never as flamboyantly self-destructive as
Doherty) and been in a band deemed at one time the saviors of British music. It feels like more was expected of
Doherty on
Grace/Wastelands than on his previous projects, or perhaps he expected more of himself: his clear-eyed singing and playing do these largely acoustic, often elegant, and usually down-to-earth songs justice, succeeding where
Down in Albion's quieter moments got lost in fog and chaos.
Doherty revisits the glory days of his former band but doesn't try to relive them, even when he digs into his bag of tunes for "New Love Grows on Trees," a
Libertines-era tune with the knowing line "If you're still alive when you're 25, should I kill you like you asked me to?" The song is more smoky and evocative than a
Libs-like fiery outburst; similarly, "Arcadie" sounds wistful for the ideals of a few years ago, but
Doherty sings with the knowledge that they are just ideals. The single "The Last of the English Roses" feels doubly nostalgic, its lyrics providing
Doherty's older-but-wiser take on young emotions and its haunting melodica line recalling
Blur's dub fetish. Aside from the narcotic love song "Sheep Skin Tearaway,"
Grace/Wastelands is some of
Doherty's least overtly autobiographical music; instead, the album offers lots of stories and literary allusions, nodding to Oscar Wilde ("Broken Love Song") and the Bible (the gorgeously melodic "Salome"). He channels enough of his own emotion and experience into his storytelling that these songs never feel distant. The World War II-inspired ballad "1939 Returning" -- which was originally conceived as a duet between
Doherty and
Amy Winehouse -- and "A Little Death Around the Eyes," a
Scott Walker-esque torch song to the love that got away from a couple after their happily ever after, are particular standouts.
Doherty also uses his solo status to expand his musical range, as on the trad jazz homage "Sweet by and By," and even when he returns to more straightforward rock with "Through the Looking Glass" or "Palace of Bone"'s fiery folk-rock, it's never with the fury of
the Libertines or
Babyshambles. It's possible that
Doherty erred slightly too much on the side of caution and maturity with
Grace/Wastelands, but its best moments are so good that it's hard not to feel a little cheated by how incomplete most of his other post-
Libertines work feels compared to it. Even if it's a little too measured at times, this is the most consistent, and one of the most enjoyable, albums' to
Doherty's name -- regardless of whether it's Pete or Peter. ~ Heather Phares