April 13, 2006

Dirty Pretty Things: Bang Bang You’re Dead

What did you expect?

What’s in a band name? On the surface, a perfectly serviceable rock monicker, combining filth and finery, grit and gorgeousness in The Stone Roses vein. But also the name of a film in which one of the central narrative twists involves a human heart being found in a toilet. How about that for added significance? Is it Carl Barât’s heart that has been in the toilet? And if it is, who is it who has been merrily pissing on it, as his every action takes the piss?

One thing’s for certain: Carl has certainly planned his comeback to perfection. With a Libertines biography at the top of the bestseller list and the Doherty tabloid clap-him-in-irons shriekfest showing no signs of abating, ever, there’s something tremendously fuck-you in coming out with so vicious a title, open to so much interpretation (Is it Peter upon whom he’s training his sights? How we will all dig deep to confirm it!). But the real fucking-of-you comes from the fact that this is better than anything The Libertines ever did, and a country mile better than anything Babyshambles have mustered – a simple, terrific, spiky guitar insta-classic, a shade over 200 seconds of pure troubadour swagger. Once you’re done bouncing up and down with it – it may take a while – there’s the small matter of lyrics like “I gave you your Midas touch/ You turn around and scratch out my heart” and a chorus of “Bang bang, you’re dead/Always so easily led” to digest and disseminate. Shouldn’t be too hard. The war of Albion, it seems, has been won.

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