Wales has done the music scene a huge favour in recent years, just now, Bullet for my Valentine have went into the big time on their first album and Funeral for a Friend are making album number three, but there's one band that really opened the floodgates and made two solid albums,
Lostprophets are the first of this wave of bands to come out of that little country. The first album,
The Fake Sound Of Progress put them into the public eye with stomping songs like
shinobivsdragonninja and the title track, but now, there was some pressure, they were expected to do something big, they were expected to go above and beyond what they'd done before; they did, and the results are? Well, let's see, shall we?
Keeping up the trend of a storming opener as set by
shinobivsdragonninja on their debut, Ian Watkins and company don't waste time in turning everything to 11 and blowing you away, but while that aspect's remained, it seems that there's something different in their sound, a lot of the times in
The Fake Sound Of Progress, the guitars were tuned in drop C to give them a more metal like sound, a sound which has been tweaked and twisted and moulded yet has kept that indisputable
Lostprophets charm, which can only be described as a combination of metal instrumentation, with some melodic hardcore intricacy and pop-punk like catchiness in the sung vocals filling the gaps the instrumentation leaves. but on the other hand, they know how to make a catchy, uncomplicated song; something which they do a few times on this album
If
The Fake Sound Of Progress was and is a hurricane, then this album is a Guy who fluctuates between kicking your head in, and paying for your plastic surgery, only to mess you up again, because it does have some more laid back songs on it, songs like
Goodbye, Tonight take advantage of some mellow passages, while allowing itself to run a bit faster and a bit louder in the pre-chorus and chorus. but the other side of this coin is the harder, faster, louder songs on the album, a prime example of which is
Start Somethingwith it's slightly understated intro, which gradually gets quieter and leads into chaos. the verses consist of the first phrase in each line being screamed behind ian's vocals, with the second phrase in each line lacking the screaming backing vocals, the chorus alsio has one of the best lines throughout the CD (
Stop Dreaming, Start Something. When it's in your hand just start anew ).
However, everything has a negative point, and there is one huge recurring one throughout the album. on a 13 song album, 8 songs -nine if you count
Last Train Home- have instrumental endings. Now, that would be brilliant; if they were any good, but the tragic thing is that the album has about ten minutes of filler by counting the instrumentals and the (rather awful) song in sway, which is pure filler. now, if it's looked at, 10 minutes is another 2 songs, probably more, but it wasn't taken advantage of, which is irritating to say the least, subtract these ten minute, and you're left with an album less than 50 minutes long, which leaves me feeling slightly cheated, they were smart enough not to make full filler track, but rather "mini-tracks" not shown on the track-list; whose only justification is to flesh out the album.
so, would i buy this again? well, considering I got it for £4.99, I can't complain
too much, but considering the price it's being sold for now in my area, I'd be a bit more apprehensive, simply because it has that huge chunk of filler, and in all honesty, it's not really got much out of genre appeal, it has the harder edge of
The Fake Sound Of Progress, but it doesn't execute is well as
The Fake Sound Of Progress. But it also has the slightly poppier side that's embraced in new album,
Liberation Transmission, but thankfully, it's not as bad as that. it keeps it's edge, which is maybe why it was appreciated so much, but when someone out of the genre looks in, it's nothing special
In Genre: 4/5
Out of Genre: 3/5
Overall Rating: 3.5/5
*Star Track*
in a style reminiscent of
The Fake Sound Of Progress's opening track,
shinobivsdragonninja,
We are Godzilla...You Are Japan turns the distortion up to 11, tunes the guitars to drop d, and makes it clear from the off with its intro combination of one fingered powerchords and A string bends leading into a chaotic and screamed verse that it's here to tear your face off. the screaming is a great part of this song, blending with the sung vocals and heavy powerchord orientated riff to give the song a little bit more oomph. as well as this, there's the solo, which is, in all honesty, just the intro riff tweaked a little bit. but while the intro had a rather understated bend following the powerchords, the solo in stead has full on screeches against a background or sirens and glass smashing, the song then goes into the final chorus, which again uses powerchords as a staple. Ian Watkins then closes the song with a grunt, and we go into one of the few good instrumentals on this CD, which acts as the calm after the storm, using a simple trumpet part repeated against a an electronic drumbeat, the instrumentals then finishes with a simple repeated piano part against the same drumbeat
in a good way
