The Lost Riots (2004)

Hope of the States have been hailed by the British press as the next Radiohead (and Verve and Mogwai), but this Sussex quintet fails to live up to the hype. The spacey strings and distorted crescendos of their melodramatic dirges may recall the above, but the effect on The Lost Riots is more contrived than climactic. And singer Sam Herlihy aims to ape Richard Ashcroft but comes off like a drunken Liam Gallagher. Hope? Hopeless.