Up the Bracket

Call the Libertines arrogant, overhyped, drug-swilling poseurs. Then buy this album anyway. The British band-of-the-moment’s debut is 100 percent guilty of recycling the hard, fast, tuneful sounds of the Clash (whose Mick Jones produced the record), the Jam, and even Dexy’s Midnight Runners—which would be lame if frontmen Carl Barat and Pete Doherty didn’t inject each tune with precisely the swaggering “fuck you” it needs. Their sneering garage punk has an energy that’s impossible to resist. So why try?