Can't Stand Me Now

The Libertines are, as Friel might say, always balanced between the absurd and the momentous. It’s important for them now to take advantage of their current status under the media glare to prove that there’s more to them than rows and carousing. This snippet from their imminent second album The Libertines is a striking, shambolic and vindictive song, conspicuously short, with a great raw, messy mix of careless guitar manipulation and harmonica wheezes. Good old-fashioned bare-knuckle rock’n’roll that manages to hang on to the band’s live edge. Let’s hope they can keep it up.