Peter Doherty Grace/Wastelands

Peter Doherty, Grace/Wastelands (EMI)

It took quite some time for the penny to drop with me, I'd be the very first to admit. Having once turned down point blank an opportunity to see The Libertines at Southsea's Wedgewood Rooms, I proceeded to offer someone else the opinion that Pete Doherty was a 'waste of skin' and then, when The Observer gave away a free Libertines disc, I didn't play it for sixth months until someone told me it was brilliant.

They were right, it was. But it was maybe partly the fact that I'd also been told he was a 'poet' that had put me off. That and the way the media indulged a drug addiction that looked much more pathetic than glamorous. However, it's me that says he's a poet now. I don't compare him with Byron, though, I compare him with Milton. I specifically compare the way that Time for Heroes starts like the way that Paradise Lost starts. 'Did you see the stylish....' sounds to me like five stressed syllables at the beginning where 'Of man's first disobedience and the fruit...' has seven, perhaps. Don't quote me on that but it is one way of checking if something is poetry or not.

So, having admired the pretty duetting with Carl Barat on Can't Stand You Now and then Don't Look Back into the Sun, I tried my best with Babyshambles but it was only the insouciant rambling drawl of Lost Art of Murder that was memorable. And here we are again, having accepted that the lad is a genuine talent, wondering if he's ever going to deliver again properly.

Certainly Lady Don't Fall Backwards is a poignant little effort, and I wish I knew why Last of the English Roses seemed so much more than its constituent parts. He certainly wears his hat at a jaunty, knowing angle and after all this time I somehow can't help liking him. At least some of his success is down to the fact that he knows exactly what he's doing, he has his reference points but the attitude that sometimes comes out of the songs- that he can't quite be bothered to do it properly- is perhaps both his strength and his weakness. When he pulls it off it is a neat trick to seem so undercooked but cute. On the other hand, when other songs are less convincing, one might wish he'd do a proper job. I'm afraid this album is not the long-awaited return of the prodigal son.