Up The Bracket (USA-import)
The Libertines: Carl Barat (guitar/vocals), Pete Doherty (guitar/vocals), John Hassall (bass), and Gary Powell (drums). Forget all the well-meaning comparisons to good bands present and especially past. Every guitar-based four-piece with enough sidelong flair and I-don't-care gets those nowadays, and these Londoners have more talent and panache than most if not all of them. They're plenty songful if you give them half a chance, which is hard because they conceal such a bewildering wealth of compositional tactics within a fast, loose, lyrical, vulnerable sound that's their own even if they've never given it a moment's thought which is what the sound wants you to think. Let the past take care of itself. They want the world and they want the handcar it's going to hell in.
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