Pete Doherty – Felt Better Alive Review

After some success in reuniting The Libertines, Pete Doherty turns his attention to other projects. It feels welcomingly cyclical. The indie darling has now approached Babyshambles and his solo works, the latter given its first single in three years. Felt Better Alive feels tremendously honest and open about previous struggles. Everyone from Louis Theroux to the NME has been given a backstage pass into the highs and lows of a very publicised life. Doherty has been no stranger to public intrigue and his latest single, the first single from his album of the same name, is a vindication. A desire not to repaint those past dealings with the press, but Doherty sounds comfortable with his position in the modern-day. He has given his life over to songs of old and, in turn, finds love for the trail song-like experience on Felt Better Alive.  

Utterly charming work from Doherty may feel like a soft surprise, but Felt Better Alive is delightful. This is the sort of reaction you can expect when, every morning, you start the day with a coffee and a listen of Big Iron. The record has stopped skipping and Marty Robbins blasts through the house, daily, at around eight in the morning. Perhaps the spirited performance of a song so closely tied to exploration, to exploits which better the heart, are what gives Felt Better Alive a leg to stand on. Doherty has crafted a beautiful song here, some of his very best writing. There is a tremendously managed tenderness to Felt Better Alive which comes from the lingering strings. But the fine line between soppy and sloppy is walked well by Doherty. Artists cannot create a faux sincerity. There are too many tells this style of writing, which gives in to the truth. Felt Better Alive is a wonderful song because of its honesty, its openness with a listener.  

We take that dedication to reality, that affect it has on the wilder style of storytelling, the dog-chewed tourniquet which represents the banged-up and bandaged wounds of the real world, for granted. Doherty writes with a wild openness and a liberated feeling comes through as he reminds us of the glory days once told in stories for screen and sound. A Toledo name drop brings the mind back to Robbins, on to Bob Dylan, the artists who made their way through trail songs of a similar ilk to Felt Better Alive. Where the album’s title track stands as a love letter to living, it also presents a rugged traveller, a man who has run the gauntlet and come out the other end with an appreciation for the calmer qualities. Sincerity is the leading force of Felt Better Alive, but it is the backing of soft instrumentals, of sweet percussion as the steady beat, which gives it an on the road again quality.  

Doherty is a man of the road, that much is clear on Felt Better Alive. He gives himself to the old songs not just in heart, but in spirit and soul, too. Adapting the older tones into a modern swing, a standard of old-school country and soft folk, but with his modern twist. This is a song that will convince those on the fence over Doherty’s work elsewhere. For those who were not all that taken with The Libertines, this is such a wildly different sound, an open track where the lyrical qualities are clear. Those strings elevate the song a little bit further, they cement the earnestness of life lived in the public eye. What Doherty hopes for, what he finds on Felt Better Alive, is a rambling style of life, a stranger in these parts where being elusive, unknown, is an admirable and wanted trait.