Carl Barât & The Jackals
Let It Reign
COOKING VINYL
5/10
As Let It Reign opens with the unashamedly undisguised Clash homage “Glory Days,” one can’t help but pine for the days when the Good Ship Albion sailed the seas—and we almost believed The Libertines’ Pete Doherty and Carl Barât could just be a new generation’s Mick Jones and Joe Strummer. That shambolic roguishness (minus a bit of the stereotypically English foppery) does still seem to be at the heart of Barât’s musical ideology within his solo work—even as rock and roll has suffered a right de-bollocking of late. But on “Victory Gin,” when he snarls, “I defy anyone to tell me I am wrong,” you might just be looking for the next barricade to storm. Still, while his cobbled-together Jackals make a truly glorious racket here on Let It Reign, listeners may wonder if they might have heard it all before. A Libertines reunion, of course, is right ’round the bend. Perhaps he’s saving the real stormers for then?
