Albion

The bloody bugger. Just when you thought it was safe to write Pete Doherty off as some kind of joke, back he comes with a record that actually does justify 90% of the hyperbolic crap that’s been written about him. Albion actually does sound something like the work of a musical genius, a surprisingly subtle lament for England (“violence in dole queues and a pale girl behind the checkout”) that easily matches his former band’s fleeting moments of greatness.