This article also appears on Mondo Irlando

Anyone following the grand soap opera that is The Libertines may well have forgotten one fundamental element amidst all the hoo-hah about the drugs and the thieving and the jaunts to Buddhist retreats.

With all the worrying about the state of co-frontman Pete Doherty's health, both mental and physical, and all the tension regarding inter-group relationships and what-not, one can easily get caught up in the theatrical shenanigans whilst simultaneously losing sight of what made the band so worthy of such attention in the first place.

To wit; they are exceptionally good, is the fact of the matter.

Debut album Up The Bracket was as invigorating and exhilarating a debut as anyone had any right to be expecting from this bunch of cockney charmers with one ear on The Kinks and The Small Faces, and the other on The Clash's first three records, up to and including the assimilation of Mick Jones as producer, albeit with much less hair than he had when singing about "When you lot get out, we're gonna hit the town, we'll burn it fucki-ing doownn!... To a cinder."

But if that debut spat in the face of expectations about just how good this ever-so-fashionably dysfunctional crowd could be, then the new album, set for release on August 30th, will mug said expectations in a cider-soaked alley and plunder the hell out of every pocket to be found, not leaving before delivering a swift boot to the teeth, and saying about "Fuck you, you expectational son of a bitch."

I love this band, is the autobiographical dirt to be dug. I put this in the player hoping for all the world that it would be as amazing as Up The Brackett. I didn't expect it to be better. Who the hell would imagine such absurdities?

Well, imagine, motherfucker, imagine all the people if you will, and while you're at it, imagine all those people awash with orgasmic dementia on account of just how tremendous this record is, being the new one by The Libertines, called The Libertines.

It's tremendous as a motherfucker, is what.

The first single, Can't Stand Me Now, also opens the album, and immediately one realises how much of a collaborative effort this seems. First time around, Pete Doherty and Carl Barat pretty much handled vocal duties exclusive of one another. There was a Pete song, then a Carl one, and so on and so forth. This time, for the most part, both of them are spitting over the mic at the same time, a truly magnificent development in light of all the yacking about how they hate each other. You can almost imagine the pair with an arm around the other's shoulders, perhaps only to slide the arm down and grab a handful of leather-coated arse-cheek, although this is purely a matter for speculation.