HOW can you hang on to a dream?

Tim Hardin penned this tune 40 years ago, but both Pete Doherty and Carbon / Silicon's Mick Jones (producer of the last Babyshambles record) find new energy trying to capture the shifting sands of their lives and our times, but with mixed results.

Shotter is slang somewhere for crack dealer, and Doherty's worldview shifts between his own battles to live his life as an outlaw (not unlike Hardin) and story songs in the vein of Squeeze. Producer Stephen Street has done well; it is almost like listening to another band - disciplined, melodic and to the point.

Doherty is the kind of front man who is either loved or loathed, the Mick Jagger of his generation. The introspective, acoustic Doherty is swept away, and the original demos strikingly reconfigured in a more commercial way. Delivery is a fantastic single and career high, but this promise isn't sustained. The guitar playing is below-par throughout.

Carbon / Silicon is the opinionated offspring of Mick Jones and Tony James from Generation X. Fans of The Clash will find plenty to enjoy here - a lively punk attitude, married to shiny, incisive guitars. Instead of inner turmoil, Jones turns his guns on the bigger issues. Really The Blues with its Blondie riff is the pick of the crop, but the arguments wear thin across the over-long tracks.