Lostprophets - The Betrayed

After scrapping almost a whole album's worth of material recorded with John Feldman, Lostprophets' fourth album finally gets released. Almost nine years has passed since Lostprophets debut Fake Sound of Progress was unleashed and The Betrayed manages to show a more mature, darker sound whilst still keeping an aggressive edge.

Starting off with amplifier noise and drums If It Wasn't For Hate we'd be Dead by Now which sounds more like an intro track the album bursts in to Dstry/Dstry which starts the album properly. It is reminiscent of their debut album with a hiphop/funk element mixing with the metal side, classic Lostprophets!

Following up are recent singles It's Not the End of the World But I Can See It From Here and Where We Belong, the latter being an anthemic slow song and the former being another slow song but it's a lot more dark than anthemic.

Next Stop Atrocity goes back in to heavy territory and is arguably the heaviest track they have ever recorded, shades of The Blackout and Bullet For My Valentine are present here but the trademark shoutalong chorus is there.

For He's a Jolly Good Fellon and Better Nothing are sadly midtempo filler whilst Streets of Nowhere has an almost dance element which could be influenced from Ian Watkins' dance side project L'amour La Morgue. One of the most diverse track follows, Dirty Little Heart, this sounds like nothing they have recorded before and a punk/ska twist to it.

The album closing with two slower songs Darkest Blue and The Light That Shines Twice as Bright.

The Betrayed is by no means a bad album, the first five tracks are really strong but after that it sounds more like a collection of songs than a full album due no consistent "sound" in them. The two heavy tracks are really good and are bound to be live favourites and the diverse Streets of Nowhere and Dirty Little Heart are excellent as well. But a lot of the slower tracks are forgettable.

Lostprophets have grown up, this album has a lot of new ideas and different tempos and as such it is a grower.

6 out of 10