Lostprophets may hail from Ponytpridd, the birthplace of Tom Jones, but it's hard to imagine the two acts have many fans in common. Instead the Welsh six-piece peddle an explosive brand of hard rock, packed full of metallic riffs, chainsaw guitars and pounding keyboards. What really marks them out from the crowd, however, is their clean-cut image - they have all the grooming and bright-eyed good looks of a boyband. And in keeping with this schizophrenic approach, frontman Ian Watkins spends half the time screaming like Kurt Cobain and the other half crooning like Ronan Keating. It shouldn't really work, but it does - this is stirring stuff, tuneful, epic and surprisingly soulful. If they can get over the embarrassment of having a keyboard player named Jamie Oliver, these prophets could have a very big future.
