New-rave unrenewed - Klaxons reactualized?

Boy was the new-rave craze a strange ordeal huh? Looking back at what many people expected - feared perhaps - would be the next big thing, and the benchmark for the latter part of the 00's, when it arose around 2006 and '07, it seems strange that it vanished almost quicklier than it came, and almost all the bands slightly connected with the moniker disavowed it completely. It was a thorough craze though. I remember when Klaxons came to Roskilde in 2007, and everyone were dressed so neon that one could have thought people had shredded Björk's wardrobe from the evening before into pieces and divided it between them. Face paint was passed around, and people went amok.


So what happened then? Well, people grew older and more melancholic, and started to listen to Band of Horses, and when the absolute poster boys of new-rave, Klaxons, with their psychotically-acclaimed debut Myths of the Near Future, disappeared into LSD oblivion, their scrawny supporting cast of the likes of Hadouken!, Shitdisco, Late of the Pier and such could not raise the bar, and as such, Myths... became the singular epic record of the genre.


So, Klaxons disappeared for years, and when they finally came a-knocking on Polydor Records' door, they were sent back home with a firm "thanks, but no thanks", and fewer and fewer people started to expect that Klaxons would ever reappear. But here they are now, with their new album, Surfing The Void.


Now, how exactly do you handle a legacy and a tumultuous album-birth like that? Apparently, you dress your record in one of the weirdest-as-fuck covers seen in a long, long time. Musically, Klaxons surprisingly allied themselves with metal producer Ross Robertson. An interesting choice for a band, which has perhaps always been indie. I mean, back in 2007, when Iron & Wine were still strange, Bon Iver was still unheard of, glitzy vintage-style trainers weren't at the forefront of every a store and only lumberjacks looked like lumberjacks, Klaxons and glowsticks and genuine vintage trainers were indie. So Ross Robertson? Picture sweety-cutesy James Righton with a sweaty, unhygienic metal buff? Not really. And that's pretty much the signature change on Surfing The Void. Sadly, the often very finesse'y guitar riffs and Righton's dominant synths of Myths... have been replaced by more guitar noise on Surfing... Opener 'Echoes' is very much of a bridge-builder between the two albums though - so much, that it must be either from very early in the songwriting process, or, more likely, a result of Polydor's slamming the door on the band first time around. It is an extremely pleasing track, but it is the albums high.


It's not that the rest of the album is that bad. It has been slowly moving through the past week, from the 'disappointment'-pile into the 'slow developer'-pile, and on some tracks, like the totally mental 'Flashover', the excessive guitar noise does actually work pretty well. Title track 'Surfing The Void' and 'Venusia' are other highs on the album, but it never quite lives up to the promise of 'Echoes', to be honest. A lot really has to do with the lyrical universe, which is really irrelevant to most earthlings, as it takes on almost Matt Bellamy-ish degrees of space fascination.


I don't know what made Myths of the Near Future so legendary, but Klaxons in my opinion don't quite match their early success on Surfing The Void. It's been a difficult task though, and even though Surfing is a bit too noisy, unfocused and uninteresting, it is an honorable sophomore album in any case! New-rave it isn't, but Klaxons have proven able to reactualize themselves on one of the most difficult number twos in a long, long time.