LostAlone are a band, and they want you to know it’s alright to be your own individual. It’s hardly the most ground-breaking message a band could communicate, but it fits well with the planet-sized sound of their tracks. As such, it is somewhat unsurprising that they have been given the opportunity to support some of the bigger bands who forge their identity around that particular philosophy (namely 30 Seconds To Mars and My Chemical Romance, to name but those). In fact, LostAlone also appear to have inherited some of the taste for the grandeur that animates both those bands, hower their sound is huge and distinctive enough to avoid the trapping of exposing themselves as wannabee Gerard Ways.
The band’s first and most obvious quality lies in their ability to land some huge hooks and choruses the size of constellations. In fact it seems that everything has been done to crank every instrument just under the saturation point, guitar locked between fuzz and chunk, a motherly bass as well as drums crashing and pounding along. Yet the band manage to focus all this excess energy into pump-action tracks like ‘Love Will Eat You Alive’, ‘Paradox On Earth’, ‘Do You Get What You Pray For?’ but they also show a dirtier side with ‘Vesuvius’, a belter laid upon some very solid riffing and a string-heavy introduction.
‘Creatures’ shows off Battelle’s vocal skills (as well as some decent harmonizing work from his fellow bandmates) and characteristically underlines the band’s sense of spectacle. Standing somewhere between the theatricality of Queen and the polished production of contemporary modern rock bands, LostAlone’s style does tend to repeat itself somewhat within the songs and while one might argue that it only solidifies their distinctive sound, the perfect cleanliness of the production does tends to aleviate some of the natural tones and makes it difficult to distinguish a true variety within the album.
That being said, LostAlone do a great job at what they’ve set out to do: an all-out sing-along, stadium-filling album that just needs the audience to support it. This reviewer wouldn’t bet against it.
3.5/5
‘I’m A UFO In This City’ by LostAlone is available now.
LostAlone links: Official Site|Facebook|Twitter
Words by James Berclaz-Lewis
