The Welsh rockers Lostprophets have evolved once again with their newest offering, The Betrayed<\/i>.\u00a0 Back in 2006, the group delved further into pop-rock than ever before with Liberation Transmission<\/i>.\u00a0 At the time, frontman Ian Watkins and his crew dressed heavily in black for promotions, and in doing so, they looked like a poster for the Matrix<\/i> trilogy. A few years later, the band has emerged from the studio with a new dirtier sheen to their sound. If this was the Wachowski\u2019s world, The Betrayed<\/i> would be the red pill to Liberation Transmission\u2019s<\/i> blue.<\/p>\n
This album is not a return to their sparse yet aggressive roots of thefakesoundofprogress<\/i> or the pop-punk of Start Something<\/i>.\u00a0 It has the catchy choruses of Liberation Transmission<\/i>, but the soaring ideals and bravado are now grounded in a grittier reality.\u00a0 The world has shifted since 2006, and The Betrayed<\/i> is a reflection of it.\u00a0 This is recession music.<\/p>\n
The disc launches off with the driving drums of \u201cIf It Wasn\u2019t For Hate\u201d before leading into the bombastic\u201cDstryr\/Dstryr,\u201d which riffs like Rage Against the Machine. The melodic chorus melts into a bridge that builds and teases before exploding into a rare guitar solo.<\/p>\n
First single \u201cIt\u2019s Not the End of the World,\u201d follows this intro up with pop-metal riffs and a pounding refrain.\u00a0 Even if it seems Michael Moore wrote the lyrics, it is a relatable song in a world worried about water wars, global warming, and intractable conflicts in the Middle East. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhere We Belong\u201d is the track most reminiscent of Liberation Transmission\u2019s<\/i> radio-friendly pop and is a direct descendant of \u201cRooftops\u201d and \u201cLast Train Home.\u201d\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t have the bravado of \u201cRooftops,\u201d though, and it isn\u2019t about love; instead, it\u2019s about holding on in hard times, and in that, The Lostprophets deliver the quintessential recession single.<\/p>\n
\u201cNext Stop Atro City\u201d will remind fans of \u201cStart Something.\u201d It is a fast-paced burner of a song that will have you humming and moving. If we\u2019re headed there, at least the Lostprophets will have their fans dancing on the way to Atro City. Meanwhile, \u201cFor He\u2019s A Jolly Good Felon\u201d pairsa funky bass line and syncopated guitar to provide a new sound.\u00a0 The song grooves its way into a fun singalong chorus.<\/p>\n
On \u201cStreets of Nowhere,\u201d a retro dance-rock song that hearkens to Liberation Transmission\u2019s<\/i> single \u201cCan\u2019t Catch Tomorrow, Good Shoes Won\u2019t Save You This Time,\u201d Watkins sings that he\u2019s never troubled and that everything\u2019s okay on his streets of nowhere, but we know better.\u00a0 It\u2019s a defense mechanism, the pretense of a child blocking out sounds too painful to bear. It would take a Willis Tower full of Prozac to turn my city, Chicago, into these streets of nowhere, where everything is okay and trouble is nowhere to be found. <\/p>\n
Next up, \u201cDirty Little Heart\u201d slows down the pace with a thoughtful number about a broken heart that won\u2019t quit.\u00a0 The chorus is one of the most memorable on the album, and it doesn\u2019t quit either. \u201cDarkest Blue\u201d relies heavily on a prominent bass line in the verse before a guitar riff builds nicely toward the refrain.\u00a0 The song experimented with dynamic changes and could have taken the approach further.\u00a0 The lyrics are demonstrative of the album\u2019s sobering direction, as they could have been lifted straight from the diary of a teenager ridden with angst and worry.\u00a0 Still, the plain lyrics are salvaged by another great refrain.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Light That Burns Twice As Bright\u201d is a gem to cap off the album.\u00a0 This is unexplored territory for the Lostprophets: a ballad that could never make it on mainstream radio. The chorus is not as catchy, but the complex meld of piano and guitar mixes well with vocals that are subdued until the tension builds to the track\u2019s resolution.\u00a0 This is the most introspective and heartfelt track and it allows The Betrayed<\/i> to finish strong. It also builds momentum for further musical exploration in the band\u2019s future. <\/p>\n
The Betrayed<\/i> provides a mix of styles as it muses on apathy, the loss of relationships, and the failure of dreams.\u00a0 The Lostprophets are honest about who they are in delivering a variety of sounds while keeping the constant of a refrain full of hooks.\u00a0 While they also sing at length about how it feels to suffer alone, the release\u2019s introspective ballads offer a glimmer of hope.\u00a0 Ian Watkin\u2019s \u201cDirty Little Heart,\u201d after all, \u201cstill longs to beat.\u201d\u00a0 So do ours, recession or no. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":30290,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8559],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-41944","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-lostprophets","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41944"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}