The Lost Riots

Taking their name from an Albert Deutsch psychiatric paper lambasting the state of the US mental asylum system, Hope Of The States' debut album boasts classical structures; blasts of pure noise that coexist with beautiful, sublimely bittersweet melodies. Producer Ken Thomas (Sigur Ros) put together 12 songs that are by turns intense, angry, beautiful and serene but that somehow emerge from the darkness with a smile. The tense insistent The Red, The White ... could be about a world moving on from nationalism. Other tracks - the violin-led, deceptively merry George Washington, the spectrally beautiful centre-piece Don't Go To Pieces, or the snowbound self-doubting slightly disturbing Me Ves Y Sufres could be about anything people want them to be. The Lost Riots shows that rock music can still provoke, inform and thrill.

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