The arrival on the scene of The Klaxons a few years back gave indie, pop and rock a much-needed kick in the pants. Sure, they were a band born of self-consciously over-trendy east London, causing the NME to froth about "nu rave" for ten minutes, but they were also a sudden flash of raucous beatnik psych-pop in a landscape dominated by mundane Luddites such as The Fratellis, The Kooks, et al. The Klaxons harked back to rave culture's utopian bluster but littered their music with knowing nods to Ballard, Burroughs and The Beach Boys. How could anyone not be smitten? And when they won the 2007 Mercury Prize for their fantastic debut album Myths of the Near Future they were giddily overwhelmed, childlike in drunken glee, clearly as convinced as we all were that Amy Winehouse or Bat for Lashes were a shoe-in.
But then they disappeared, popping up briefly at Glastonbury 2009 to play a short, brilliant set dressed in Tim Burton fancy dress (Edward Scissorhands, The Headless Horseman, etc). Word was that they'd lost direction, gone off at the deep end writing a demented experimental odyssey that had to be scrapped. Judging from their new song, such rumours are way off. They might have gone off piste but the spanking new song "Flashover" on their site, produced by American heavy rock doyen Ross Robinson, is a steroid epic, fortunately flecked with the imagination and melodic sweetness that make this quartet such a cause for excitement.
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