Babyshambles - Shotter's Nation

CD Album
1.     Carry On Up The Morning
2.     Delivery
3.     You Talk
4.     UnBiloTitled
5.     Side Of The Road
6.     Crumb Begging
7.     Unstookie Titled
8.     French Dog Blues
9.     There She Goes
10.     Baddies Boogie
11.     Deft Left Hand
12.     Lost Art Of Murder

CD Album + Bonus DVD
CD as above
DVD
1.     The Boogaloo Tapes
2.     Delivery (Live At Boogaloo)
3.     Baddies Boogie (Live At Boogaloo)
4.     UnBiloTitled (Live At Boogaloo)
5.     There She Goes (Live At Boogaloo)
6.     Pipedown (Live At Boogaloo)



A broad range of influences shine through on this album, from the Kinks, through to punk, Stone Roses, a touch of Soul 2 Soul, 80s' indie, Madness, Blondie, Motown, Britpop and even one inspired by their UK number four hit single ‘Fuck Forever’.

Lyrically, the album captures the many facets of Peter's character: storyteller, lyricist, street poet, hopeless romantic and chronicler of British life. From capturing the feeling at sunrise after a night on the tiles, to delving into a self-destructive 20 year marriage (‘Baddie's Boogie’) this is an album of rare emotional breadth. The album even manages to immortalise Peter's doodle invention (and ‘Down In Albion’ cover star) French Dog in one of the album's highlights 'French Dog Blues'

All songs are written by Peter Doherty, with contributions from Mick, Adam and the band. On ‘Unbilotitled’, Peter’s old mucker Wolfman wrote some of the lyrics (the pair penned a top ten single in 2004 with 'For Lovers').

‘Delivery’, the lead single, is a rollicking hymn to escaping the daily grind. Peter: "It's about some kid in a brewery leaning up against the wall, getting told off by his boss time and time again for not being there when the crates got delivered and at the weekend he'd put on his favourite Fred Perry and just go out and get battered and have a scrap and find a girl and then do it all over again on the Monday. It's kind of about escape as well - escaping the mundane kind of nine to five. That song’s a magic carpet with lots of kegs of ale on it."

The album's finale is the delicate beauty of 'The Lost Art Of Murder', played acoustically and accompanied by UK folk legend Bert Jansch, with whom Peter sang during his recent two night stint – ‘An Evening With Peter Doherty’ – at London’s Hackney Empire.

Drew: "They recorded it with Bert playing the guitar and Peter singing along so Bert's acoustic part and Peter's vocals were recorded at the same time. Peter put some arpeggio guitar over it. A lot of people think that's Bert when they first hear it. For a bit I was in the room with them playing double bass and I thought "you know what, man, this song is gonna sound beautiful as it is", so it thought I'm not going to push it. I just got up and left them to it."

This fragile bird of a song alone shows Peter to be one of the great singer/songwriters of the past 20 years.

So this is it, twelve songs of range and depth that highlight their songwriting and playing prowess brilliantly. ‘Shotter’s Nation’ is a record for fans and newcomers alike with each listen revealing new complexities in the arrangements. Forget the obsessions of celebrity media: this is about the music. This is the album that Peter Doherty and Babyshambles have always promised to make.

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