It’s been quite a year for comebacks. Just look at Duran Duran, for example - less than a decade ago they were bloated laughing stocks that people would point towards and laugh at. Now they're sainted pop overlords and every morning Simon Le Bon's postman gives himself a hernia carrying sackloads of awards invites.
You sympathise, then, with Lostprophets. Now on the verge of releasing their second LP, they’ve fluffed it by returning just as Fred Durst hamfistedly bludgeons Nu-Metal to the point where no amount of cultural revisionism will evelvate it beyond novelty fat blokes squawking like angry parrots.
All’s not lost, however, because tonight - even though they insist on keeping those dreadful ‘scratch solos’ in existence - Lostprophets MK II positively rawk.
The old stuff still sounds great – particularly the anthemic ‘Fake Sound of Progress’ – but it’s the new songs that take centre stage tonight. ‘Make Your Move’ and ‘Say You Will’ sound sleeker, more melodic and smarter than anything before them; and don’t forget, Lostprophets were never exactly cumbersome, tuneless and stupid, as a ferocious version of breakthrough single ‘Shinobi vs. Dragon Ninja’ proves.
Whereas before Lostprophets were content to wing it on pure adreneline, there’s a newly instilled purpose from a band aware that they can’t afford to be written off. Enter new single and set-closer ‘Burn Burn’, a huge, Foo Fighters-shaped slab of stadium metal, admittedly pilfered from Seal’s (!) ‘Killer’ but none the worse for it. By the end, both support bands are onstage screaming, and frontman Ian Watkins is lost in the crowd. Comebacks, you say? Piece. Of. Piss.
Barry Nicolson
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