Surfing the Void

Surfing the Void might have a problem with redundancy, after all, most Klaxons songs sound more or less the same – but taken as bits and pieces, these tracks are remarkably strong.

Klaxons are a band that always wrap their musical offerings in several layers of window-dressing, arcane references and imagery. Their Mercury Prize winning debut album Myths Of The Near Future was presented to the world three years ago. With its nods to JG Ballard, William Burroughs, Thomas Pynchon and Aleister Crowley, the apparent trail-blazers for "nu-rave" often came across more like the shambolic yet thrillingly pretentious friend your older brother brings round to befuddle and intrigue you all at once with his show-offy quotes and allusions.

As the tapping of a typewriter signals the end of 'Venusia',Surfing the Void's mid-point, one can only imagine the levels of critical ambivalence being punched out on the keypad. Ever since 2007's Myths Of The Near Future announced Klaxons' arrival in spectacular style, the doubters have been queuing up to preempt the band's failings and ultimately, decree the extremely difficult follow-up album would never actually see the light of day at all. With one false start after another, poorly received showcase performances, songs written and recorded before being dropped in an instant and the occupant of the producer's seat changing before the final furlong, it's been a fraught three years since the release of their debut.

Right there in the first paragraph of producer Ross Robinson’s Wikipedia page is a terrifying nickname, one which follows a rather dire list of career highlights: “The Godfather of Nu Metal.” But for Klaxons, a band who never seemed entirely comfortable with being tagged as “New Rave” themselves, the idea of looking beyond labels must have held considerable appeal. Record labels have long been vilified for stifling artistic freedom in pursuit of the almighty dollar, and in the past decade the corporate structure has taken further hits for the perception that its been dragging its collective heels into the digital age. For fans of Klaxons, Polydor’s rumored rejection of the band’s “experimental” submission on their sophomore album was tantamount to treason. Without having heard the material that apparently wasn’t up to snuff, I daresay the label might have been right on the money.

Let's not bullshit: That is an album cover for the ages, but it's disappointing that a LOLcat in a spacesuit has done a better job of causing stateside excitement for the Klaxons' new LP than the band's debut, Myths of the Near Future. Back home in the UK, Klaxons won the 2007 Mercury Prize with that album, gave bombastic interviews that namedropped Pynchon and the KLF, and had four hit singles plus a handful of other songs that could have been. But in the U.S., Myths seemed victimized by the same distrust of UK next-big-things that also hamstrung Arctic Monkeys and Foals and ended up being a strange combination of overhyped and underrated.