While music is filled with the names of incredibly famous groups from pop sensations like the Backstreet Boys to the ever-popular Beatles, solo artists have a certain flexibility that is harder for groups to have. Individuals can join and leave bands as they please. Pete Doherty was a brilliant, young, promising artist by himself, who happened to form the greatest song writing duo with Carl Barat since John Lennon and Paul McCartney. It’s true that listening to Babyshambles’s second album “Shotter’s Nation” is like listening to the nonexistent third album of The Libertines—Doherty first became famous as a member of The Libertines, who then went on to form Babyshambles. However Doherty, alone, remains one of the best songwriters in modern pop music.

In the days before his foray into songwriting, he was a poet. By listening to the songs we see that years of over-exposure to the public and tabloid articles have done nothing to stifle his gift for lyricism. Doherty’s words are as powerful as ever, exploring unique rhyme schemes and unconventional perceptions of love.

No I
Never said it was clever
I just like it in leather
Lookin’ for the light
Behind your eyes

While Doherty’s band members provide more than competent instrumentation for his melodies, the band is unable to replicate the same improvised yet tuneful sound embodied by his former band, The Libertines. Many of the songs feel somewhat out of place, like the awkward “Baddie’s Bookie,” which seems almost slapped together on top of Doherty’s vocals. Maybe only Barat knew how to make rhyme out of Doherty’s madness—but there are songs which come across as unified yet chaotic, brash yet beautiful, youthful yet tinged with loss.

The album’s second track, “Delivery,” is one such song. Doherty sings about his battles with drug addiction and his struggles as an artist. He speaks of the Shotter’s nation which gives the album its title—a shotter is British slang for a drug dealer—and hopes that he can gain redemption through his art, “This song may deliver me/straight from the horror to you.” The words are layered over a pair of simple guitar lines which effectively set the stage for Doherty’s brooding.

Babyshambles gradually add in their instruments, often starting with Doherty’s guitar and layering the rest of the band in what sometimes becomes a magnificent crescendo. The effect can be dazzling, as with the start of “You Talk,” where a pair of chords gives way to a lively plucked bass and an exuberant rhythm section. “You Talk” is one of the few points on the album where Doherty does his best lyric work and drummer Adam Ficek’s ferocious drumming offers a welcome contrast to Doherty’s gentle warble.

On The Libertines’s second album, Doherty and Barat sing a duet, the near perfect “Can’t Stand me Now,” which seems like a conventional ballad about a dysfunctional couple. Listeners wonder if they aren’t singing about the relationships in their lives—but to each other. It’s hard to think of a pair as brilliant in their songwriting and as tragic in their inability to maintain a respectable image. While their dysfunctional relationship has lead to fights and break-ups and burglaries—Doherty was sentenced to six months in jail for breaking into Barat’s home—“Shotter’s Nation” shows that it’s also led to many, many great songs.