Singles

Lostprophets - A Town Called Hypocrisy

Dan Round 31/08/2006

Rating: 1/5

The Lostprophets' follow up the the anthemic Rooftops, with A Town Called Hypocrisy yet again it shows how drastically part of the “emo” scene The Lostprophets have become. 4 years since the raging Fake Sounds of Progress, and 2 years since the panicky, apocalyptical hit Last Train Home (both great songs in their own way), the band are stuck in a bit of a rut.

As their sales increase, it seems the band's relevance and meaning spiral downwards. If they thought giving the song a similar title to a Jam classic about urban meltdown with a slightly obscure, negative word replacing malice would give them mainstream credibility in addition to teenage anti-counter-culture adorance, they were very much mistaken. A Town Called Hypocrisy just nicely loops over and over in basic pop-punk angst with not much new to say - the clumsy, clichéd lyrics are overly self-aware of their forced discomfort, and they are unrealised, with no apparent aim at anyone or anything in particular. It is as if the band sat down and deliberately wrote something self-consciously unsatisfying, but now they are part of an unfortunately ever-growing trend, they have lost their importance - they have nothing to rally against and seem contempt with spitting out nonsense that the emo kids will lap up.

With no catchy pop hook which its predecessor undoubtedly had, this really is a dull listen, but because The Lostprophets are constantly paradoxical, it'll probably be a hit, and will almost certainly be played in Generation X's discontent-well-off-dumb-conformist teenager's bedrooms for months (at least until the next My Chemical Romance album comes out). And that is exactly why A Town Called Hypocrisy should be despised, and it is exactly the reason that if The Lostprophets don't lift a better single from their album soon, they will be shunned from the limelight for good.

Watch the video:
Here

(released 11/09/2006)