Klaxons – Surfing The Void
Polydor apparently rejected the original version of Surfing The Void, which begs the question: were the label reining in the British trio’s indulgent experimentalism or stifling their creativity?
TNT Music reckons it’s possibly a bit of both. Ravey, synthed-up opener Echoes sounds like the same Klaxons who won the Mercury Prize for their genre-defining debut album Myths Of The Near Future, but mostly the songs on here seem to labour beneath a cacophony of distorted electro and guitars.
Where Myths… was vivid and energised, Surfing… is sluggish and murky, lacking the hedonistic abandon which made Klaxons the nu-rave vanguards.
Sadly, there’s a hollowness to Surfing The Void which suggests the Klaxons are not happy right now.
2/5
Review: Alison Grinter
