The Libertines have released the third single from forthcoming album All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade. Listen and watch the video below.
“Shiver”, described in the video as “All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade Part Three”, sees the band in a similarly tender-yet-dramatic mood to last release “Night of the Hunter”. As with that single and October 2023’s “Run, Run, Run”, the video was shot in Margate, and this time depicts a moody black-and-white funeral of a Pearly King (American readers may need to Google just what a Pearly King is – good luck with that rabbit hole) as well as several recurring characters from the cover art of the album.
The song was co-written by twin frontmen Pete Doherty and Carl Barât. Speaking of the songwriting process, Barât said: “Peter had a song and I had a song and we mashed them up and did it collaboratively.”
Doherty added: “I would probably find it difficult to work out who did what because we were both there the whole time through its creation. It should really be called ‘The Last Dream Of Every Dying Soldier’, but everyone liked the title ‘Shiver’.”
All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade, The Libertines’ fourth studio album, will be released on March 8, 2024. It comes nine years after last LP Anthems for Doomed Youth, which peaked at No. 3 in the U.K. Albums chart, and represents a continuation of the stunning return to form for the band that many had written off after their messy implosion in 2004. The album is available to preorder here.
The Libertines' new album 'All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade' is a stunning return to form for the band.
In an NME interview from last year, Doherty described how after reconciling his previously difficult relationship with Barât, the duo returned to the very thing that had forged their friendship in the first place.
“All we want to do is write beautiful songs,” he said. “That’s what we’ve always wanted to do, but we got distracted – mostly by ourselves. On this occasion, we followed the pattern of writing songs that we believe in but there was nothing else to say; no fanfare, no cacophony. This is the album we’re proud of.”
In the run-up to the hotly-anticipated release, The Libertines will be recording a session at the BBC's Maida Vale Studios for broadcast on Radio 2’s “Piano Room” sessions hosted by DJ Vernon Kay in February.
The band are also preparing for an intimate tour of club venues across the UK, following two riotous gigs in Margate in December. The shows, which sold out immediately, have been described by The Libertines as a return to their early-noughties roots “in these small sweaty clubs, where we can see the whites of the crowd’s eyes”. Full dates are below.
The band will tour 'small sweaty clubs' ahead of the album's release in March.
The Libertines 2024 Club Shows
January
23 – Stockton Arc
24 – Liverpool Cavern Club
25 – Milton Keynes MK11
27 – Cardiff Clwb Ifor Bach
28 – Derby Hairy Dog
29 – Lincoln Drill Hall
February
11 – Falmouth Pavilions
12 – Southampton Engine Room
14 – Stoke Underground
15 – Leeds The Wardrobe
16 – Glasgow Oran Mor
