The Libertines – I Get Along

You Just Got Screwed

If this album was metaphor for sex, it would be a gang-bang with Jack Black, Jack White and Courtney Love, with the VCR rigged up for instant replay at the point of synchronized anal penetration. This metaphor shows that the album is a short rail-worthy EP of not-so epic proportions, comprised of five of their old songs. Nothing new has been written. How cheap is that? Aren’t EP’s supposed to be album companions, or we-couldn’t-wait-for-a-full-record-to-put-this-out kind of deals? If you could get all of these songs on other albums, why would you go out and pay something like $10 for a five-song mixed CD?

As for the music itself, it’s loud and dirty. It’s Black’s goofy rock-and-roll, White’s too-cool-for you Indie, and Love’s hissy-fit grunge-punk. It’s simple percussion. It’s oops-we-made-a-boo-boo-but-it-sounds-cool songwriting. It’s trite lyrics, bereft of substance that make you want to do nothing productive but daydream about ugly sex. The quality sounds like it happened in a garage or an elevator or a public toilet.

“Garage rock” means that it is supposed to sound unfinished and raw, but they might be taking that a little too literally. It sounds like your next-door-neighbor’s thirteen-year-old’s first band. They mess around on their instruments, play a few Nirvana covers and then go watch Dad’s hidden porn. Though these songs aren’t covers, it still carries that same sort of vibrato (or lack thereof). I Get Along makes you feel cheated for ever having thought that this EP was new and exciting. It’s not, and yes, you just got screwed.