Hardly innovative but very exciting.
“I was obsolete, I couldn't hear the beat!
Staggering about on me old man's feet!
I had one foot in the grave….but now I’m new rave!”
Way back when the Klaxons sat down and tossed out the term “new-rave” as a joke description for a new genre sweeping the nation did they really know the impact they were about to unleash? With the third series of The Mighty Boosh returning with a punch-line based around the concept of new-rave and making new what was old, its fair to say that 2007 has been a major year for the three-piece. With the Mercury Award under their belt, alongside countless sold-out tours and festival performances, not to mention romance and broken bones, where do you being to look back on the past 12 months for the band?
The best place would probably be ‘Myths Of The Near Future’, the debut album and the one that set the record straight about were they just indie kids having a laugh at playing an old genre or was there really more to them? Some considered Klaxons to be a one-track pony but by the end of the album, they were closer to being the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
And its not just the bombastic singles that were worth listening to, theres plenty of songs that go beyond mere filler with ‘Totem On The Tieline’ and ‘As Above, So Below’ standing out as early highlights. The breakneck pace of the former soon give way to the ludicrous rush of its lyrics and if theres a more bizarre opening line that “At club 18-30 I met Julius Caesar, Lady Diana and Mother Theresa’, its certainly not been played on Radio 1 this year.
And when you think about the singles, theres still an almighty impact from them, with ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ showing no sign of diminishing in power. Its intro is simplicity in itself, a punchy yet perfunctory bass-line quickly giving way to the high pitched vocals that seem in a hurry to get to the chorus, its probably the song most dipped in MDMA and is all the better for it. It’s a wide-eyed wonder of a track and even if the band released nothing else, they would be deserving of a footnote for this air-thumping number. The rest of the singles have split opinion, some finding ‘From Atlantis To Interzone’ a bit too crazy and possibly unsettling but its transformation in the live arena to a moshing favourite, adds further credence to the knowledge that the band have a lot more up their sleeve than rave pastiche.
Its not all great, in some places it seems a bit too contrived, the shoutier moments on ‘Four Horsemen of 2012’ can do your head in if they catch you the wrong way and frankly, this reviewer was never a fan of ‘Not Over Yet’ when it was first released and time hasn’t been kind to it. However, the good moments easily outweigh the bad and for a band that had the backlash waiting for them from before the album was even out, Klaxons did not a bad job in turning out a very good album. The real trick is what they come back with but for the moment; revel in the organized chaos that is ‘Myths of The Near Future.’