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Sep 2, 2015There’s enough fun here to justify Anthems’ existence, which really is a lot to say for an album that for so long seemed like it would never exist. If it acts as a one-off return for fans, it’s an amiable, if un-revelatory set.
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Sep 4, 2015It’s a mostly successful and far more mature record; it just has to be seen as a more grown-up Anthems for Doomed Youth rather than the anthems from doomed youth that they previously brought.
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Q MagazineAug 31, 2015Anthems For Doomed Youth has plenty of reminders of why people fell in love with The Libertines in the first place.... For better or worse, the habit of both spinning and dwelling upon their own mythology remains too. [Oct 2015, p.112]
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Sep 11, 2015Musically there’s nothing new here, though Anthems For Doomed Youth feels particularly sanitised, especially compared to the freewheeling, ragged approach that gave The Libertines’ first two albums such charm.
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Sep 15, 2015Now even Gary Powell’s drums can’t give these sodden valentines the right kick.... The best Anthems recall a time when Doherty and Barât could still tickle each other.
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Sep 11, 2015While the music has the spindly, junkie-skeletal manner of earlier releases. But the way that songs relentlessly mythologise their past is frankly wearisome at this late stage.
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Aug 31, 2015If the solutions offered are sometimes better than expected, they’re also, frequently, tentative and tired.
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Sep 4, 2015Anthems never quite lets itself be business as usual; the sound is cleaner, but not polished to a sheen. The anger is still there, but it’s tempered a bit--only a couple of tracks (including the aptly named "Fury of Chonburi") really pick up the pace to a recognisably Libertine degree. Lyrically, though, every facet of the band’s existence is dissected.
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Sep 8, 2015Even with Pete Doherty clean, and their songcraft to the fore, Anthems for Doomed Youth has the unmistakable tang of opportunity squandered.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 37 out of 42
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Mixed: 3 out of 42
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Negative: 2 out of 42
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Sep 11, 2015
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Mar 5, 2016
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Sep 16, 2015