Album Review : Klaxons - Surfing The Void
- Written by Antonio Tzikas
If you can remember as far back as the summer of 2006, you might recall that Klaxons, for a few months at least, seemed like the biggest band in the country. Hyped beyond their wildest dreams and supposedly poised to deliver us into a “new rave” era (which was really just guitar bands with one guitar replaced by a synth) the band re-released the singles that got them big along with a load of filler and rushed it out as their debut album Myths Of The Near Future. It won the 2007 Mercury prize and then they disappeared.
With them went all their hype and momentum and they gradually began to occupy the section of the brain reserved for embarrassing teenage memories, then they became something you talk about with a cringe, “Oh god! Do you remember when we used to dance to this?” and finally became a joke. Well, they’ve at last emerged from their exile with their follow up. It’s been a long wait but has it been too long? Have they Stone Roses-ed it? Can they ever be forgiven for new rave and glow paint?
Well, what’s for sure is that the musical landscape in the UK has changed a fair deal since Klaxons were last involved in it. Those few post-Libertines years of Brit-Pop resurgence have disappeared, as have all their peers, and as it stands there are no small bands in the charts, kids don’t listen to guitar music anymore, and American bands and scenes have taken over the indie world again and are infinitely more exiting than our homegrown acts. So where do Klaxons fit in now? Bearing in mind that they’re doing nothing new this time, they’re destined to fit snugly into mediocrity with this record, and they might even see a few familiar faces.
Lead single ‘Echoes’ confirmed my fears, sounding much the same as their earlier material but with a grandiose tone in the instrumentation and the vocals of the driving chorus. The problem is, with so many good albums coming out this year, this just isn’t cutting it. With the exception of the initial shock of hearing ‘Flashover’ and thinking “Oh cool, this is a bit of a new sound”, nothing here really does anything close to interesting. It’s not that the songs are particularly weak, just bland and unexciting. There aren’t any standout moments at all and I’ve had no desire to listen to any of it again - a bad sign. Some of the tunes such as ‘Cyberspeed‘ and ‘Extra Astronomical‘ begin sounding quite promising but don’t deliver.
It’s not even that the wait has been too long and the new rave thing has passed as the sound has kind of matured a bit since the first album. Unfortunately, this album would have been disappointing even if it had been released a year after their first. I wouldn’t bother taking The Suburbs off repeat if I were you.