Lostprophets - Better Off Dead

Perhaps the most shocking thing about new Lostprophets single Better Off Dead is how much it doesn't sound like the Lostprophets. From the saw-cutter mid-track guitar solo and the guttural gang-worker chants, it's like a beast emerged from long hibernation to find a world profoundly changed in its absence. Compare it to the glossy hook-laden singles from Start Something and Liberation Transmission and there seems little in common linking the two eras.

But in a way, this works to the favour of the band's new efforts - times have changed in the past five years and the charts, on the whole, feel far less receptive to rock than they did back then. A new wave of band's have leapt up from the ground - your Kids in Glass Houses' and You Me Six's - and Lostprophets stand with a dilemma of how to remain relevant in a drastically changed musical world.

Previous album The Betrayed felt like a testy adolescent, trying to get used to this world, fighting and clawing at the walls of its room in an attempt to become accustomed to it. Its lasting impressions - something half-formed and halfway there to recapturing the band's past glories.

Luckily, new single Better Off Dead feels far more like a move in the right direction - it's heavier, meatier, weightier - a more metallic Lostprophets, re-envisioned and re-vitalised for a new decade. Yes, it lacks the overt pop hooks of earlier material, but it packs a hell of a lot more punch. Plus, the fact it's offered as a free download definitely sweetens the deal.

Better Off Dead is the first single to be taken from new album Weapons, released on the 1st April.

Better Off Dead by Lostprophets Official

Mind Museum - Rat Race EP

I have a theory that there's no such thing as too much bass in rock, and it's something Bristol three-piece Mind Museum very much subscribe too. Their debut EP positively throbs with the stuff - the tracks feel meaty; bulging, muscular creations that threaten to spill out every where.

On Seal The Cracks this comes to a peak in the track's closing minutes, the band letting loose in a physical onslaught of raw noise. Vocals are drenched in feedback and the percussion slams away like body-punches.

On the surface, the tracks give off a sheen of hard, melodic rock akin to the likes of Lostprophets; but there's an overriding sense of something far more sinister and precise here. Rat Race showcases this best in its intricate guitar-work and massive chorus.

Across the four tracks of the EP, the band keep their sound highly rhythmic, piercing even - at times it recalls the earliest days of Muse. And just as that band found glory in their Muscle Museum, here we see Mind Museum investing their music with that sense of the body - solid, energetic, powerful; it's all here.

The Rat Race EP is available to download from iTunes here.