Given the unfolding and increasingly tragic saga of The Libertines, it's a miracle this record even exists, let alone has any artistic worth. For, in the two years since their extraordinary debut album (2002's Up The Bracket), the story of this erratic but enthralling group has taken in serious drug addiction, a prison sentence and—during the making of this record alone—three failed attempts to get frontman Pete Doherty through rehab. Indeed, on the eve of release, Doherty has temporarily been removed from the Libertines line-up.
The second Libertines album is all about this.
Bright, polished but ultimately lightweight Britcom about a forbidden romance between a London girl of Indian parents (Preeya Kalidas) and a white English boy (James McAvoy), Jeremy Wooding and former NME editor Neil Spencer's debut feature rehashes a bog-standard culture-clash plot. The incorporation of Hindi film song-and-dance numbers into a naturalistic story is a nice touch, but at heart this is the kind of creaky yarn that might have made a generic TV drama at best.
