Klaxons aren’t a novelty group and, no you don’t have to hate them. They aren’t very ‘rave’ – old or new – either. Rather, these three raggedly-attired Londoners – before us surely stands the first buzz band to crib style tips from Goldie Lookin’ Chain – do something brilliant if, with hindsight, perfectly obvious: they take dance music’s cathedral-of-noise throb and wrap it tightly around a blistering rock tempo. What results, it’s probably fair to state, will sound like nothing you’ve heard before: a booming, loping electro/guitar hybrid that feels weird enough to dazzle but sufficiently conventional to seduce you on first listen.
Myths Of The Near Future – the title is from a JG Ballard anthology – is also front-loaded with potential hits: singles ‘Atlantis To Interzone’ and ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ you may already be familiar with – the former pinches its squealing sirens from the KLF but the woozy chants – tribal yet utterly of the now – are completely original; the latter, referencing Pynchon, surfs thrillingly on falsetto vocals and demon bass-lines. Elsewhere, current hit ‘Golden Skans’ suggests – and you’re going to have to try hard to imagine this – an ethereal Kaiser Chiefs, while ‘Totem On The Timeline’ reaches, with clattering guitars and loping drums, for the Big Rock Moment. Pay attention to the hype – Klaxons are special and not just because they carry glow-sticks.