Critical acclaim is an absolute waste of time. Not for the bands who get it – good luck to them – but for the ones who sit somewhere in that strange middle ground. Not quite critically lauded, not quite banned from the mainstream, stuck in Spotify purgatory and never getting the returns their songs deserve.
LostAlone have always lived there. And they’ve always deserved so much more.
If you’d caught me in 2012, I’d have been talking about this band with genuine excitement. There was a bundle-of-madness energy about Steven Battelle and the whole operation back then: boundless, restless, never predictable. You never knew what you were going to get – except that it would be interesting, and it would be good.
Which is precisely why a best-of actually makes sense for a band like this. Because if you think you’ve never heard a LostAlone song you’d recognise? Tough luck. These things have been living rent-free in the minds of the faithful for years, and “Memories Under A Microscope” distils that chaotic brilliance into something that genuinely feels definitive.
The first dozen tracks form the spine of the record – singles, fan-favourites, live staples – the songs they has before reforming to go out on tour with My Chemical Romance, at the personal request of Gerard Way. It’s all the proof you need: this band had (and still have) everything. The glammy bits, the heavy bits, the pure power-pop instincts that Battelle seems to have wired into him like some benevolent glitch.
A track like “The Last Drop Of Forever” (from 2022’s comeback) shows he’s still got that gift. They’ve always sounded like they have a whole Broadway show running in their heads while trying to kick down the walls of a rock club. “Do You Get What You Pray For?” still feels ready to cause motion-sickness with its sheer velocity.
And going right back to 2007, the early material still bites. They were rock’s comedians then, sure, but they were also bloody sharp. “Blood Is Sharp” and “Hostages (Destiny)” still hit like you remember. There’s drama everywhere – stacked harmonies, string flourishes, little bursts of bravado – and just when you think it’s all theatre, there’s a punch in the ribs like “Punchline Punched Back”.
“Vesuvius” might be the real masterpiece here. A towering, spiralling thing that still sounds utterly singular. And while some songs flirt with six-minute epics (“Elysium” springs instantly to mind), the cleverness never gets lost: “The Bells! The Bells!!” remains one of the smartest pieces of songwriting they ever put their name to.
The final seven tracks are the real treasure. Unreleased songs, rarities, little windows into the strange corners of the LostAlone universe. “Compilation Of Complications”, the new single, arrives with a late-night, early-2000s urgency. There’s always been something beautifully British about them – echoes of Silver Sun (rest in peace James Broad), hints of the wild abandon that only UK alt-rock ever seems to pull off.
The real fascination, though, is in the B-side energy of things like “Spotlight” or “Space Breaking Ties With Time”. And “The Final Call For Forever” proves they can start out sounding like a pop band before plunging into something far grander.
Remember too: Steven Battelle writes songs for McFly now. And it shows – not because the songs are lightweight, but because he’s a proper craftsman. “I’m A Fire That You Can’t Put Out” and “All At Once” make that crystal clear. These aren’t the cast-offs of a band fading away. They’re the work of a writer with more hooks than most “superband” song factories.
In the end, “Memories Under A Microscope” is exactly what a best-of should be: a reminder of how many great songs one band can cram into a decade and a half, and a chance to look back and wonder how they weren’t bigger. But more importantly, it’s a gateway. If you missed them the first time, start here. If you loved them, get it anyway. Because being ignored never stopped LostAlone being great.
Rating: 9/10
