The Libertines, “All Quiet On the Eastern Esplanade.”

English garage revivalists the Libertines spent little idle time on their fourth album, All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade. Recorded in four weeks in early 2023 and finished over seven days in a studio in Normandy, France, the album delivers on breezy riff-heavy rockers. There’s little time to overthink these 11 songs.

The record is also a landmark of sorts for singer-guitarist Pete Doherty, who’s had well-known troubles but is now five years sober. The clarity is visible as he offers up a pointed and focused performance, and perhaps because of it, the album is as strong as anything in the band’s nearly 20 years. The band’s first record in nine years is a nod to the title of classic anti-war novel “All Quiet on the Western Front,” even as frontman frontman Carl Barât has compared it to another novel, 1971’s “Post Office.”

It’s no coincide the record has a particularly glistening sheen, as the Libertines worked with Dimitri Tikovoï (Charli XCX, Becky Hill) and Dan Grech-Marguerat (Lana Del Rey, Paul McCartney, Noel Gallagher), who brought a poppy shine to the band crunchy riffs. That’ clearest on mid-tempo rocker “Mustang,” with has some spirited cowbell and backing vocals. It’s pure Stones-influenced blues rock.

The record opens with the stomps and handclaps of “Run, Run, Run,” a throwback to the angular post-rock-influenced music of the early aughts. “It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to/ Like if you sing the blues I can die if I want to,” Barât and Doherty assert.

“Have a Friend” is about free speech and mass media, settling in to an effective push and pull between urgent rock and melody, recalling the Clash, which influenced the likes the Libertines, Franz Ferdinand and countless other bands from the late ’90s and early aughts. The band then locks in to other nostalgic sounds with songs like “Merry Old England,” which kicks off on piano before the rest of the instruments, even strings, join in.

Other songs that follow a similar groove include “Be Young,” which has a fun riff and even seems to slightly pick up speed for a few measures before pivoting into a reggae rhythm, which makes sense given that the band did some writing in Jamaica. The cheeky “Oh Shit” has an anthemic chorus.

But All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade also offers variety. “Man With the Melody” and album closer “Songs They Never Play On The Radio” offer quieter introspection. The former is a moody acoustic track; the latter trades distorted riffs for acoustic strumming and piano. It even references the “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” of a certain trio. Another slower, more somber number is “Night of the Hunter,” which is lounge-sounding even as it incorporates Tchaikovsky’s Swan Theme from “Swan Lake.”

“You’ll never clean out your clothes/ You’ll never clean your soul,” Doherty and Barât sing.

Things turn decidedly more challenging on the darkly jazzy, Spanish- or French-leaning “Baron’s Claw,” marked by hazy trumpet bleats. “Shiver,” a melodic song with lush production, sounds like it should have come from a Manchester band rather than one from London.

Follow writer Mike DeWald at Twitter.com/mike_dewald.