albums and tracks

Editor's rating

It seems an age since Pete Doherty was last strewn across the tabloids, frothing at the mouth and staring at the back of his own head. That's because he's spent the past year washing his hair, cleaning his teeth and nails and writing some songs. Well, there's evidence for one of those claims, at least: a new solo album and this, the first cut from it.

Fear not Libertines fans, Peter (yes, he's added an 'r' to his name - 'r' for respectable, eh Pete?) hasn't drastically changed his musical output. 'Last Of The English Roses' - annunciated as 'ra-hoses', apparently - is another Kinks-esque barrow-boy tale of English nostalgia ("My you did look dapper in your mother's old green scarf/With your famous Auntie Aurthur's trousers on.")

The perpetually sweaty one still manages to fill his slurred verses with enough wit to make this mellow, meandering track deliver the goods. And a bonus point is awarded for the comical rhyming of "Reeboks" with "Enochs".

Picture: Wenn