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The Libertines
Generally favorable reviews
Based on 28 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 56 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album >
Album Info
Label: Sanctuary
Release Date: 31 August 2004
Discs: 1 disc
Genre(s): Indie, Rock
Summary
While some eponymous albums suggest a lack of creativity, the heralded UK rock outfit's sophomore disc is titled 'The Libertines' because it is indeed about The Libertines--or, more specifically, about the ongoing conflict between the band's two songwriters, Carlos Barat and Pete Doherty (the latter of whom was subsequently kicked out of the band after three failed rehab attempts). The Clash's Mick Jones returns as producer.
Also By This Artist: Up The Bracket
Also On Metacritic
MUSIC: Babyshambles: Down In Albion Dirty Pretty Things: Waterloo To Anywhere
Also On The Web: Official Artist Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Uncut
The Libertines is a record of such raw autobiographical honesty that it carries a weight few others in 2004 can match. [Album of the Month, Sep 2004, p.94]
Village Voice (Consumer Guide)
Often seems fragile, offhand, tentative, even enervated. But this isn't a weakness--it only makes their sound more their own.
Read Full Review >Spin
A dark, tense record, but one still crackling with life. [Sep 2004, p.114]
Q Magazine
This record... is brimming with character, easily surpassing their debut, its energy level like a battery charge. [Sep 2004, p.108]
Mojo
An extraordinary record... It's not, nor is it intended to be, easy listening. [Sep 2004, p.94]
New Musical Express
What you have here is the most agonisingly voyeuristic listening experience in rock, ever. It's also some of the most exhilarating and brilliant rock'n'roll of the past 20 years. [7 Aug 2004, p.46]
Filter
Goddamn if the entire mess doesn't sound great. [#12, p.93]
The Guardian
A step on from Up the Bracket, this album is a winningly idiosyncratic explosion of dizzy pop and punk fury that could yet be honed to perfection.
Read Full Review >Trouser Press
A deeply moving record that is greater than the sum of its individual songs, The Libertines achieves near-tragic grandeur.
Read Full Review >Neumu.net
It's basically more of the same sort of wistful, sometimes hard-charging melodic rock of the group's first and better release, Up the Bracket.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club)
The Libertines seems less of an exercise in salesmanship and more a set of lightly buzzed, brightly conversational studies of modern urban nightlife.
Read Full Review >Playlouder
This is a fragile, beautiful music, it all nearly falls apart and then flops back together.
Read Full Review >Junkmedia
Some songs are sloppily stretched out and others simply half-finished, but the ample charms of Doherty and Barat are just enough to rescue any of these lows.
Read Full Review >All Music Guide
The Libertines is an accurate, sometimes uncomfortable reflection of the band at this point: more scattered and unstable than they were on Up the Bracket, but also more ambitious and more interesting.
Read Full Review >Pitchfork
It's brilliant at points, exhibiting the casual, grimy grace that laced Up the Bracket through English countryside benders, sing-alongs, and pub anthems, but evidently, The Libertines are creatures of excess, and even a good thing can be overdone.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone
No band in recent history has better captured the vertiginous experience of falling apart and loving it. [16 Sep 2004, p.79]
Dot Music
Everywhere you look on this record there is a sense of magic escaped, accompanied by the ever-tantalising presence of a great band just beneath the surface.
Read Full Review >Stylus Magazine
The Libertines don’t even try for a good album; they sound like four blokes lucky to be jamming in the same room again, and their joy in each other’s company redeems the enterprise.
Read Full Review >PopMatters
Review #1: Despite the fact that the new album is, yet again, a half-assed effort, The Libertines is nonetheless a thoroughly fascinating one to hear. [score=60]; Review #2: There is not a weak moment on this album. [score=80]
E! Online
The album quickly unravels into a mess of mumbled vocals, pointless guitar solos and songs that sound suspiciously unfinished.
Read Full Review >cokemachineglow
Some of these songs are excellent, in an unfinished but inspired way. But many of the album's tracks evidence a band that's bursting at the seams with talent, only to stumble on unfocused, scattershot song-writing.
Read Full Review >Blender
A thrilling, frustrating souvenir of a band whirling out of control. [Sep 2004, p.130]
Entertainment Weekly
Like the Strokes on their own sophomore effort, the Libs thoroughly disappoint on this follow-up. [24 Sep 2004, p.106]
Drowned In Sound
From the very start, The Libertines is the sound of the band at its most muzzled; paralysed by poor production, underdeveloped songs and private lives that have become more sensational and noteworthy than the music.
Read Full Review >Alternative Press
The Libertines just don't live up to the hype. [Jan 2005, p.113]
What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this album is 8.8 (out of 10) based on 56 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
pbaber gave it a10:
Up The Bracket is, for more, one of the greatest albums of all time. On hearing it, it made me feel invincible, vulnerable, angry, ecstatic. And this follow up is very close to being as good. A second maserpiece from the Libertines.
P Stirups gave it an8:
Song are good. Everything about it is good, but it isn't a rough and fun as the orignal Libertines album.
maria s gave it a10:
Painful, artistic, messy,amazing,the Libertines are one of those bands you hate to love because they make you care.
maxwell w gave it a10:
this is a fucking fantastic album, imperfect and raw. The libertines paints a scruffy, beautifal picture of pete doherty's and carl barat's crumbling relationship. and i can't stand the wankers who ignorantly dismiss this because its not as tediously polished as most tripe that reaches radio stations, if you own a brain cell, then this must be purchased. Alternative Press are also twats.
dom c gave it a10:
So honest its slanderous.
Todd R gave it a2:
When oh when will they stop ripping off the Wedding Present?
jaz b gave it a10:
shit hot album
