Album: Babyshambles <!-- none onestar twostar threestar fourstar fivestar -->

The Blinding EP, REGAL

Pete Doherty's promotional tour of London's courtrooms may be the oddest marketing ruse ever devised by the music biz, albeit one surely offering the greatest return of column-inches per pound of promo budget/fine. Either someone in Doherty's entourage has the Machiavellian marketing skills of Malcolm McLaren, or the lad's just lucky enough to stumble into the right kind of trouble at the right time. It was reported that Doherty's people took boxes of his records along to his trial as evidence of his rehabilitation - and as such, it must be admitted that, compared to Babyshambles' debut album, these five tracks possess a new sense of focus and technical accomplishment. The songs present Doherty as a wide-eyed ingénu whisked into emotional turmoil, claiming in "Love You But You're Green" that he was "... a troubled teen, untroubled only in my daydreams", and wondering in the title-track, "What will you do if she runs out of time for you?". As usual, the musical manner is part Smiths jangle-pop, part proletarian indie, spiced with a soupçon of 2-Tone ska-pop.

DOWNLOAD THIS: 'The Blinding', 'Love You But You're Green', 'I Wish'