Release date: January 18, 2010 (UK) / February 2, 2010 (US)
Genre: Alternative rock, Alternative metal
Length: 47:01
Label: Visible Noise, Sony Music
Four years after the poppy – and great – Liberation Transmission, Lostprophets are back with a new album titled The Betrayed. Stated to be much “darker” and “grittier” than their previous albums, let's see how The Betrayed fared in that regard musically.
The first track, If It Wasn't For Hate, We'd Be Dead By Now, immediately grabs the listener's attention with an opening barrage of loud drums. The track itself is pretty short, clocking in at 2:19, but it's an effective way of letting the listener know what he/she's getting into.
The end of If It Wasn't For Hate, We'd Be Dead By Now transitions well into Dstryr/Dstryr which turns out to be a real assault on the senses. Although Dstryr/Dstryr contains an anthemic chorus like several of Lostprophets' huge hits, the song is very violent musically. Everything is loud and angry including the songwriting. With shouts of “Destroyer, Destroyer!” every two lines, the chorus gave me goosebumps and made me want to scream along with Ian Watkins.
The third track, It's Not The End Of The World, But I Can See It From Here, offers a brief respite from the loudness of the two previous tracks but just barely. Although the verses are quiet, the chorus once again grabs the listener and begs you to sing along.
Where We Belong follows in the same vein of It's Not The End Of The World, But I Can See It From Here. Once again, the chorus is perfect while the verses hold their own against the solid instrumental. It's a great track.
The next track – titled Next Stop, Atro City – is probably one of Lostprophets best and hardest track to date. It combines all of the good things from their previous three albums: a – very – heavy instrumental, screeching vocals by Ian Watkins, a memorable chorus, and an intense, headbang-inducing bridge. If you're familiar with Lostprophets' music, just imagine a much heavier "Start Something" (the song), and you get Atro City.
For He's A Jolly Good Felon is a good song featuring great vocals by Ian. The track itself is composed of two songs – for two and a half minutes, you get the usual Lostprophets fare, then the rest of the song is an instrumental straight out of a futuristic horror movie.
A Better Nothing is a good track, nothing more, nothing less. The chorus saves it from being an average track. The same goes for the next to last track, Darkest Blue.
Out of all the previous tracks, Streets Of Nowhere is the closest thing to their last album Liberation Transmission. Ian's singing on the verses is quite catchy. It reminded me of the song “Can't Catch Tomorrow (Good Shoes Won't Save You This Time)” on Liberation Transmission.
Like Streets Of Nowhere, Dirty Little Heart is reminiscent of Liberation Transmission – the song "Always All Ways (Apologies, Glances and Messed Up Chances)" in particular. I especially liked the piano-driven instrumental at the end.
The final track, titled The Light That Shines Twice As Bright..., is an excellent Snow Patrol-esque ballad that contrasts sharply with the rest of the album. Like “Sway...” on Start Something, it stands out from the other tracks but still feels like Lostprophets material at its core.
I first discovered Lostprophets after seeing the video for “Last Train Home” on MTV (or was it MuchMusic, can't remember) but was convinced to buy their albums after hearing tracks such as “Burn Burn,” “We Still Kill The Old Way,” “Shinobi vs. Dragon Ninja” and “Kobrakai” in video games. Although Liberation Transmission was a bit too mainstream for LP's hardcore fanbase, I found it great, bordering perfection. The same goes for The Betrayed. From the opening assault of “If It Wasn't For Hate, We'd Be Dead By Now” to the softer but still rocking “The Light That Shines Twice As Bright,” Betrayed doesn't disappoint. Ian Watkins' apocalyptic-like songwriting and singing shine brightly on this album and all the instrumentals accord themselves perfectly with his voice. The tracks I would definitely recommend are “Dstryr/Dstryr,” “Atro City,” and “The Light That Shines Twice As Bright....” I give this album 4.75/5.
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Genre: Midwest hip hop, hardcore hip hop, horrorcore
Length: 33:43
Label: Aftermath, Interscope, Shady, Web
Since the hotly anticipated Relapse 2 was pushed back to 2010, Eminem decided to appease his fans by re-releasing Relapse with seven bonus tracks, giving Relapse: Refill a grand total of 27 songs. Since we already reviewed Relapse when it came out, here are our thoughts on the new tracks. If you wanna read our Relapse review first, click HERE.
Originally on Lebron James' "More Than A Game" documentary soundtrack, Forever is the first bonus track of Relapse: Refill and features Drake, Kanye West and Lil' Wayne. As it's been the case for popular rap songs of these last couple of years, the use of Auto-Tune is apparent on the chorus. As for the verses, Lil' Wayne came in dead last in terms of delivery in my opinion while Eminem absolutely rocked it. It's not the best track that I've ever heard but Em's verse alone is worth listening to over and over again.
The second track, Hell Breaks Loose, has the same issue that's been prevalent on the Relapse album. Lyrically, the song is excellent and it felt good to hear Dr. Dre behind the mic once again but the beat didn't match at all with their flow expect maybe on the chorus which wasn't that great to begin with.
On Buffalo Bill, the beat and lyrics beautifully come together to make one hell of a track. Although Eminem's accent is still annoying, I've heard it enough by now to be used to it and it has the benefit of allowing him to stress on rhymes that wouldn't have existed if he didn't use that accent. Here, the beat takes second stage, allowing Eminem's talent to come out unhindered. Truly a great track.
Like Buffalo Bill, Elevator is another great track where the beat doesn't ruin Eminem's lyrical genius. The same goes for Taking My Ball where he raps “But they're afraid I might get Sarah Palin by the hair / and make her wear a bathin' suit and take her Parasailin'.”
Like the three previous tracks, Music Box is also an excellent song. The one thing that bothered me was Eminem repeating “My music box” over the chorus. The song didn't really need that part but other than that, it's great.
On Drop The Bomb On 'Em, Eminem takes a Jamaican accent in the intro but reverts to his normal voice on the verses. Again, the song is lyrically excellent and Dre's beat is perfect for Em's flow on this track.
In the end, where Relapse was a disappointment at first listen, the seven tracks on Refill only refuel my hope for Relapse 2. I think it's safe to say that no matter what his albums sound like, Eminem is a lyrical genius. If he can get the music to go well with his flow, there's no telling how great Relapse 2 will be. I give those seven tracks a 4/5 and eagerly wait for the next album.
Hello all and welcome to the first edition of Muzikal Mafia's holiday playlist. In case you missed it, we, here at Muzikal Mafia, have decided to publish monthly playlists in order to introduce our readers to new (and old) music. Basically, every month – andon the occasional holiday – we'll post a random list of songs which we feel people should check out. On those lists, there will be both mainstream and non-mainstream tracks.
We start today with 18 songs for Martin Luther King Day and I gotta tell ya, making that list wasn't easy. A first, I wanted to put only rap songs but I quickly realized that taking this approach led me away from my goal, which is to broaden everybody's (rap lovers and rockers alike) musical horizons. I then decided to list political songs but I came to the conclusion that other dates were more fitting for the political stuff. Then, I thought about putting any song which had a title, lyric, or vibe that could be associated with MLK's death and/or the South in general. The final result is a mishmash of all those ideas put together. You got some rap songs, some rock, some political stuff, some random stuff, and three french songs to add some international flavor. Keep in mind, I didn't want this list to be only about MLK, but about hope, life, love, social justice, and so on. Enjoy
Hello all, as 2010 is kicking into high gear, I thought I'd give you guys an update on our projects for this year. As you can see, there's been a couple of esthetic changes to the site these past few months and I finally uploaded a new header today.
On the blogging front, reviews have been few and far between this past year, but know that we are trying our best. Studies and other real life activities have often gotten in the way of our posting schedule. If you've been reading us for awhile, you probably noticed that we pretty much dropped the “Blast From The Past” reviews.
The reason for that is that it was getting very time-consuming to write two-three reviews at the start of every month on top of the weekly reviews. But, fear not, we are not going to stick to “new” reviews only. I decided to replace “Blast From The Past” with a new feature which will be a monthly playlist of songs heard throughout the month in question. Basically, at the end of every month, I will post a list of 30 songs (or 31 depending on the month) – one for each day of the month – that I feel people should listen to. I will also post playlists for some holidays. For example, there will be fourteen songs for Valentine's Day, four songs for the 4th of July, etc. The idea of a monthly playlist was inspired by my friends over at the Boombox Theory who post songs weekly in an effort to introduce people to groups/bands that they had never heard before. Hopefully, it won't take as much work as "Blast From The Past" reviews
Hey all, I know I've been pretty much absent from this site the past couple of months but don't fret, I'm trying to find a format that will go easier on my schedule. Due to the Olympics this year, the schedule is pretty compressed and instead of having two-three games a week as it was the norm the past couple seasons, now we have to deal with four - sometimes five - games a week and I can't write a recap for each and every single one of them without running over games (posting recaps from a game after two other games have already been played). So, this is just a heads up to say that I'm still here and should be back to full throttle by New Year's.
Manchester United faltered in a big way this week as they were crushed by Fulham on Saturday while Chelsea drew against West Ham United. The two results put Chelsea five points ahead of the Red Devils who now have to look behind them as Arsenal, Aston Villa, and Tottenham are closing in. Here are the full results.
Lack of time has prevented me from keeping up with Serie A. But then again, when Inter is sitting comfortably at the top and you know that they're going to win it once again, it's not that hard to drop off from that league. Anyways, here are the results from last weekend.
Barcelona is still on top as they go on to the Club World Cup this week. Bad news for Madrid who lost Pepe for the rest of the season in their victory against Valencia. The full results follow.
I'd definitely put My Immortal in that list as well. And Goodbye My Lover by James Blunt. There's also a song from the underground rapper Immortal Technique that gets me choked up every time but I can't remember its title. If I find it, I'll put it in the comments.
You're right Anon... I've given it a few listens these past couple of months and I must say that it gets better each and every time, especially Beautiful which is a great track.
I'm also looking forward to Relapse 2 just to hear someone other than Dre behind the production.
In Canada, we get Bones on Wednesdays so the schedule isn't as complicated as expected. On Thursdays I watch FlashForward, Grey's and The Mentalist one after the other.
Same thing on Mondays. Heroes and House clash on US schedules but we get them one after the other. It's pretty neat. No need for DVR and stuff...
I didn't get it either when I first joined in but after two months there, I found that it's a nice way to promote my blogs all the while telling people more about myself (although I have no idea why someone would be interested in my ordinary life).
As for the celebrities, yes it's quite a stretch to believe that people like P. Diddy, Britney Spears, Mariah Carey, etc. do their own twittering but more obscure celebs actually do communicate on there. People like writer Harlan Coben, producers Hart Hanson and Stephen Nathan, and underground rappers such as Ryu, Scoop DeVille, Apathy, etc. Not everyone on there is a fraud.
This latest album supposedly represents an attempt by The Black Eyed Peas to break away from hip-hop, and appeal to a larger audience.
In other words, they sold out. I was very disappointed in that first single. So much so that I didn't bother reviewing the album. Glad that I'm not missing much.
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