“To us if we had to describe it, this album is the Sith to our other Jedi” is the statement Lostprophets front-man Ian Watkins said when describing his bands fourth release The Betrayed. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean this album will be “dark” and “brooding” but a more personal approach to song writing. In the past Lostprophets has been the band that teenagers latched to due to their anthems of rebellion and being who you dreamed of being. Of course the relentless energy of guitars and vocals helped make them slip through the decade releasing anthem after anthem (tracks such as Kobrakai, Five Is A Four Letter Word, and Fake Town of Hypocrisy spring to mind). So how does The Betrayed stand up to the bands previous releases and most importantly; on its own? The album starts with the spoken word track If It Wasn’t For Hate, We’d Be Dead By Now which brushes too much against anthem waters and ends up being utterly forgettable. Luckily tracks such as It’s Not The End Of The World (But I Can See It From Here), A Better Nothing, Darkest Blue, and Where We Belong come off as the most honest words written by Watkins with grand form that plays homage to the punk and post hardcore genres. But tracks such as Destroyer/Destroyer come off as though a teenager who learned what the word “atheist” meant wrote the lyrics. The thing that works for and against the album is that the emotions lashed upon the listener are raw and true. The reason this hurts the album in some aspects is because some of the tracks are clearly blind anger that comes off as laughable rather than insightful. Now that works for some records but the shifting between alterative and metal is just downright awkward here and doesn’t compliment most of the tracks: basically the band has no clue what direction to take and doesn’t try to hide it at all. For He’s A Jolly Good Felon has a great lyrical tone but begins to fall facedown to the shit pile when the last minute and a half rushes into a weird electronic acid trip. Now I enjoy Basement Jaxx and The Crystal Method as much as the next guy but on this album the elecronica bits are so out of place that it’ll be a mean feat if you decide to stick through the whole thing. This nearly takes you out of the album completely due to the fact that prior to this each track was intertwined perfectly (with the ending actually being the introduction to the following track) this comes off as downright baffling and if you hope to avoid it again than leave the track Dirty Little Heart after the four minute mark. Overall this album is an attempt for by the band to deter from the anthem bursting tracks that made them famous, and as much as it is annoying to see an artist beat on a dead horse one can’t help but ask why such an approach wasn’t taken. The tracks that do stand out prove that Watkins has insight and a side of him to show, but due to the grungy love stains (Next Stop, Atro City will make you raise your brow effortlessly) and sloppy song writing make this the first Lostprophets album you won’t even bother to wear out with repeated listenings.
