DIRTY PRETTY THINGS

There had to be a complete severance," explains former Libertine Carl Barat and Pete Doherty's ex-best mucker. "The Libertines still exist in my mind, but this is called moving on." Moving on means Carl's new outfit, Dirty Pretty Things. Bang Bang, You're Dead, the first single from the band's debut album, Waterloo To Anywhere was a recent UK Top 20 hit and life now looks rosy post-Doherty skag hell. Dirty Pretty Things feature Libertines drummer Gary Powell and guitarist Anthony Rossomando (who stood in for the absent Doherty on the Libertines final dates) and Ex-Cooper Temple Clause bassist Didz Hammond. A fascination with English culture still informs the Pretty Things cleaner-living music, "You just write crap if you use cocaine," says Carl, helpfully.