I am immediately going to start off by stating my prejudices. A number of reviews I have written recently have started with my stating the notion that most of the bands involved in what NME calls "the new rock revolution" are too unimportant and interchangeable. With my other reviews, specifically The Killers' Hot Fuss and The Walkmen's Bows and Arrows, I have gone on to defend those bands and spoken about how they are the exception to this rule and deserve recognition beyond being a part of NME's attempt to once again convince people they control what reaches your ears. However, I stand by my original point, and The Libertines are a central part of my proof.

Now, be honest, how many tears would you shed if The Hives never made another album? How much money would you be willing to part with for a third album of treatments to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's debut single? And, seriously, how difficult is it to suppress a laugh when someone mistakenly states some kind of appreciation for Jet? I would not like to believe that, at 22, my era is over and music has started to pass me by. I like the cream of what this genre has to offer, The Strokes are the very best at what they do, perhaps ever, and The White Stripes give me a sound I can't find anywhere else. But in the case of The Libertines the appeal is totally lost on me. Not since U2 has such feelingless pap inspired so much attention and devotion. Mercifully, The Libertines are nowhere near the scale of U2, yet, and in the defence of the Irish whingers at least they were doing feelingless guitar pap amidst feelingless electronic pap. But, the principal still applies.

Okay, so The Libertines are a party band, just like The Strokes. That's fine, but there isn't a single Libertines song that touches anything The Strokes have done in terms of melody and superficial excitement. And even if The Strokes only seem to sing about needing to be free from your girlfriend and wanting to drink lots of beer, at least they are about something. To me, The Libertines' debut was about as deep as a puddle, and the follow-up is no better.

From the very first guitar sounds on the opener "Can't Stand Me Now" we're right back where we left the band last time. Even though the band has been through so many emotional traumas thanks to Pete Doherty's drug addictions (and not even cool rock star drug addictions, he ended up breaking into someone's house and getting arrested in much more of a scouse junkie way than a Courtney Love way). There is less growth here than you'd get in a room full of impotent men looking at a naked picture of Margaret Thatcher. This track also shows the return of The Libertines harmonica, up there with Bob Dylan and Alanis Morrisette in misguided forays into that particular instrument.

The songs continue to splurge together, as the band spout nonsensical lyrics in unintelligible voices to tunes designed for six year olds. The album becomes almost impossible to review in terms of specific songs since not only do they seem to run in to each other, they also sound so similar they are all open to the same weaknesses. Track three, Don't Be Shy deviates slightly into a slightly more obviously misguided attempt to sound like early Beatles. Plenty of bands have tried this tactic of course, but while Oasis tried to sound like Daytripper, The Libertines look more toward Maxwell's Silver Hammer. At least there are couple of decent bass runs on this one.

Music When The Lights Go Out tries to present a different side to The Libertines, the first acoustic song with some decent guitar work in the introduction but again, when it comes down to it they just present an irritating song with an acoustic guitar rather than an electric. Arbiecht Mein Frei is slightly more punk inspired, kind of sounding like the traditional crazy Blur punk song but without the musical ability to pull it off to the right properly. Also, a song baring the title and chorus of the words etched on Nazi concentration camp gates really should not be a 1 minute 17 second throw away album track, two songs before a song that starts with the repeated mantra "shoop shoop shoop da-lang-a-lang" in What Katie Did, the most irritating song on a deeply irritating album.

Unsurprisingly, the album kind of stops rather than finishes. Closing tracks Tomblands and The Saga are exactly like all the others. The entire album seems to be made up of filler material, but you would have thought they would try to come up with some sort of finalé.

The songs are irritatingly chirpy. While we do need something to counter the faux angst of nu-metal and more recently emo, this is taking it too far. If The Strokes are the lads you want to bump in to out on a Friday night, The Libertines are the overbearing idiot you want to avoid in work on Monday morning. The Libertines are to this genre as Cast were to Britpop, Tad were to grunge and POD were to nu-metal: also-rans who inspired incomprehensible interest and baffling fan devotion.

I will make one confession. Usually I listen to an album multiple times before I review it. I know that I am in no position to put together any kind of insight on just one listen. But this time, I just could not do it. I listened to the whole thing once and then again but only in scraps of two or three songs at a time over a period of hours. I've been listening to it again as I wrote this review as I always do but after two unrequired trips to the bathroom, countless journeys to the kitchen and finding the will power to clean the kitchen; I can still say I don't think it's a grower.