On which another ex-Libertine releases some music as if to remind us all that it is actually about the music and not the lifestyle choices.
While Pete Doherty flirts dangerously with death, drugs and the dailies and bides his time between court dates with the shambolic Babyshambles Carl Barat has seemingly exorcised his own demons and marshalled some new troops and songs under the moniker Dirty Pretty Things.
'Bang Bang You're Dead' is a lively little number with a deliciously brief guitar volley at the outset and a suitably pithy and biting lyric that may or may not be directed at Doherty. Either way as the words remain suitably enigmatic the song itself lacks the friction and the elegantly wasted passion that The Libertines brought to their delivery. The production is far more safe and moderated than the ramschackle live cacophony that Mick Jones commandeered for Barat's previous cohorts while the song itself feels strangely disposable, lacking the breathless urgency and indeed the downright necessity one might have expected or indeed hoped.
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Such griping may seem harsh but with so much guitar based fodder masquerading as "the next big thing" there is enough average and above average to last a post-punk lifetime. Barat knows a good tune when he writes one but without his wayward and unpredictable foil his focus seems neat and narrow rather than perilous and panoramic.
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