The Libertines share first album in 9 years ‘All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade’
The band reunite for a new album.
Photo: Ed Cooke
It’s All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade, or is it?
The Libertines’ new album lets us hope that music can still give meaning to our souls.
The essence is the same one that led you to things in your past, now reduced to embers. But embers are bonfires waiting to start again. All it takes is a sheet with the right lyrics and blowing some oxygen to the right beat, and that’s it. You are up and running again, running on nonstopping trains because the soul does not age.
The carefree days reverberate in our memory; only the sunset remains unchanged. The sunset, a canvas of boredom and unanswered questions about our past. We dwell in neglected houses, front lawns strewn with forgotten toys and rusting weight benches. Behind the windows, we are listless figures, our attention captured by the digital world, our living rooms adorned with Instagram relics. The lads, waiting for the smoke to obscure the car windows, a feeble attempt to reclaim a sense of coolness. Closing our eyes, we let the air bless our cheeks as we ride at full speed in the ecstatic oblivion of our dreams.
“And all dream on tonight diving Mustangs into the night…”
Without warning, the serene sunset is shattered by the chilling wind of the sea. The once warm hues of the sky give way to a menacing black. Orange flashes pierce through the ominous clouds, illuminating the scene for a fleeting moment before an unfamiliar rumble shakes the very ground beneath us. It's a scene plucked from the pages of history, a nightmare you’ve witnessed on your TV screen but never fathomed experiencing firsthand. The world turns topsy-turvy, a nauseating whirlwind of motion, a steep descent into the sea that feels like concrete, breaking our backs against the unforgiving wave.
“Follow the tracks in the mud down to where the sea is black with blood and tears like the bombs they fall without warning.”
And here we are, lost at sea. Our poetry, our music, our history, they all mean nothing. Lost in a sea of dirty, drab faces, we can be anyone. We could be that corpse smashing against the white cliffs of Dover. When the sea rejects us, we are forced to walk and leave our tracks on the sand for those who follow us, those who chase us. What is this place?
“Oh how you finding Merry old England?”
The night on the beach, with nothing but embers in our pockets, we are just happy to be alive. Are we going mental?
Someone is singing, perched on the edge of a cliff, dangling their legs over the rocky wall, swarming with fears, demons, and guilty nightmares — a horde of horrors illuminated by the moon, climbing, threatening, grasping the singers’ feet to pull them down, crashing onto the rocks. When passing clouds shade the moonlight, the singer morphs into a haze of particles dissolving within the cruel grasp of the monsters, precipitating and disappearing mid-air, leaving behind nothing but an echoing lullaby.
“No, you can't catch me, ‘cause I’ve got the melody.”
It's time to learn to hustle, to be reckless, and to pay dearly with childish fat tears when your luck runs out, and you’re given a chance to save yourself and plead “yes, please!” but then the sniffing, sobbing, hiccups and terror are gone, and young love is too strong to keep in check anyway. You’re going to die young or get old and wise. Either way, tomorrow never knows; if you’re lucky, you won’t know either. Or you’ll be changed forever and spend the rest of your life craving this powerful, joyful, devil-may-care ignorance.
Just smash that gas pedal now!
How did this happen? Is this real? The rhythmic cadence of chains around your ankles sounds like the unreal tolls of a bell that you never thought would have tolled for you. And yet, here you are, holding that phone, asking for forgiveness to your missus.
“I was calling to tell you, baby. That they're taking me away for a while.”
It felt romantic when you fantasised about it. And yet, here you are, cold, evil, nasty monster. Can this be you? Can this be us all? Any trace of detachment from the most despised people you’ve met has now melted in a puddle of human suffering, and you’d like to go on, but phone time is over.
A hazy dream of childhood tales takes over. Mythical figures who could be ruined by the truth, to which we owe our eternal loyalty and defend from the tyranny of accuracy by means of Vaudevillian visions. Ghosts of real people who form the fabric of our folklore, whose claws we can’t hold as they walk away from us at dawn. In our dreams, we still feel the sweet warmth of summer, and the smell of those days is still in the room when we wake up gently.
They say we will know when the end is near. They know about our last dream. But only we know what it means. History brushes against our arm as it passes by, leaving us behind, shivering at the thought of a future without us. We gather to watch an empire end, pretending it is all planned, but our eyes dart left and right, looking for the planner. Are we the planners? Why us? And we shiver once again.
“Reasons to stay alive / Not to die at 25 / I shiver / On the Esplanade / Shiver / Albionay”
Thump, thump, thump. The heart pumps too hard to be able to ignore it anymore. Unleash everything you’ve got. We are doomed. There is no use in worrying; no one is listening to anyone. Let’s do what we were born to do and fall in love with the apocalypse. Come out tonight, watch the stars fall onto the earth and smash everything.
“Oh, be young, fall in love”
As the end approaches, we are lifted from the ground and start our journey through space; a song plays. It’s them: The Libertines. If one band were to play Judgment Day, it’d be them.
“What was that song they played? / What about the pact we made?/ What was that song they played? / The day I went away.”
I remember those songs. I remember being young and believing that when you grow up, the pain goes away. I am the adult in the room now and know less than I knew when The Libertines played Death on the Stairs, and I would hug my teenage girlfriend, whose tears smelled like cotton candy.
At the end of our long day’s journey into night, when we’ll wander through the streets, looking for hope in the shadows, we will find the voices of Carl Barât, Pete Doherty, John Hassall, and Gary Powell chanting: ALL QUIET ON THE EASTERN ESPLANADE. Or is it?
All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade is out now via EMI.
