Lost Prophets are a hybrid of musical talent encompassing elements of metal, emo, funk and even break beat. Undoubtedly they will be thrown in with the nu metal bunch but whereas many of their contemporary's sound disjointed and even contrived, LP manage to pull it off as they gel each style together and unleash more hooks than a fisherman's tackle box. The singer has a distinct Patton-esque sound and like Patton can adopt many styles. Music wise you have to think along the lines of Incubus, Taproot and FNM to get a good idea of what they sound like, although its clear that the band take influences from much farther a field and dare I say it there's a Police reggae like vibe coming through. From the epic chord structures of "Fake Sound....." to the emotionally injected "Five is a Four Letter Word" it wouldn't be too hasty to say that Lost Prophets are the complete article that many indie bands would strive to reach after a few albums...well this is there first! The songs are a little predictable in that there's a quiet verse, loud chorus sequence of events on most songs but the quality of the material is so good that your be willing to overlook this predictability.

Standout track "Handsome Life Of Swing", certainly has reggae undertones and a chorus that sounds like the Refused singer going mental. This harder edge is carried on in to the following track and differs to the rest of the album in that many of the songs have serious mainstream potential, and I don't mean that in a bad way, their is definitely a pop edge to this band but pop has never sounded so cool. It's one of those albums whereby you know every lyric without ever having looked at the album notes. My only criticism is that the album is a little too drawn out and this dilutes the impact somewhat, there's one or two tracks that I feel the album could do without and I don't mean the break beat/trip hop/dj interludes that are littered throughout the album, they seem to piece the album together nicely. The production and sonics are spot on, an important factor for a band wishing to inject something fresh into the scene. The accompanying press blurb to this album states that the band formed as they were sick of not hearing what they wanted. That's as good a reason as any to start a band and the fact that something good came of it should not be taken for granted or even lightly, this is some achievement. One of the best cd's to grace my cd player this year.
(4 / 5)