  We consider finite charge density geometries which interpolate between AdS2 x
R2 in the infrared and AdS4 in the ultraviolet, while traversing an
intermediate regime of anisotropic Lifshitz scaling and hyperscaling violation.
We work with Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton models and only turn on a background
electric field. The spatially modulated instabilities of the near-horizon AdS2
part of the geometry are used to argue that the scaling solutions themselves
should be thought of as being unstable -- in the deep infrared -- to spatially
modulated phases. We identify instability windows for the scaling exponents,
which are refined further by requiring the solutions to satisfy the null energy
condition. This analysis reinforces the idea that, for large classes of models,
spatially modulated phases describe the ground state of hyperscaling violating
scaling geometries.
