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Underground > Radio & Music >

Klaxons

Phex: Dorset Doom

18:52 / 07.01.07

That's Klaxons. Not 'the Klaxons'- don't make that mistake or Art Students won't want to be your friends.
This is their Myspace, where you can listen to their songs (currently, Magick, Atlantis to Interzone, Gravity's Rainbow and silly novelty song The Bouncer). You've probably noticed the Aleister Crowley, William Burroughs and Thomas Pynchon references (and Plato if you want to get technical). They describe themselves as Screamo/Happy Hardcore/Pop and the '4 Knights of 2012'. They've clearly read the Illuminatus Trilogy and The Invisibles like a million times and do more drugs than God. They should be Barbelith's house band right? Well hold your horses there bucko, because there's something you need to know about t3h Klaxons:

They're not very good.

God knows I've tried to like them, I really have, but Klaxons bore seven shades out of me. Atlantis to Interzone goes from kinda-interesting (the rave siren bits) to annoying (everything else), Magick and Gravity's Rainbow are so dull that I forget what they sound like as they're playing. Wear enough day-glo to blind a tapeworm, reference my entire bookcase, it doesn't get you an honorary soul.
Am I right folks?

ONLY NICE THINGS

19:44 / 07.01.07

They should be Barbelith's house band right?

I pray God no.

20:12 / 07.01.07

Am I right folks?

Yes. A thousand times yes. And what's this whole new-rave thing about?

If 'old' rave has died then someone should tell the thousands of 'ex-ravers' that you see out every weekend...they probably need counselling for their denial.

21:36 / 07.01.07

It's a play on that old favourite New Wave, in this case coined by a band who I think self-applied it. Might have been these guys. Never heard them.

11:35 / 08.01.07

I saw these guys live in Australia a month ago - tho not intentionally (it was a 24-style kidnapping gone horribly wrong).

And the kidz lurved 'em. Mind you, the kidz were out of their minds on booze & drugz, so I wouldn't trust their judgement for a second.

The reason Klaxons are crap is...

...they are a dull thrash band who tart up their tawdry merchandise with references to 'hip' writers and music that was actually good. Without bothering to do anything imaginative with the music itself.

Phex: Dorset Doom

13:53 / 08.01.07

Thrash? They get a little rowdy in their more interesting moments but they're hardly Anthrax or Sodom or GWAR. It would be cool if they were GWAR, but then it would be cool if most bands were GWAR.

15:30 / 08.01.07

Aren't ye taking Klaxons just a wee bit too seriously? They're just a band - forget all that 'New Rave' nonsense.

I thought Gravity's Rainbow was crap when I heard it a year ago, but I quite like Atlantis to Interzone, and I've been humming Golden Skans all weekend, despite myself.

All Acting Regiment

18:24 / 08.01.07

Ah dear. It's that it has to be called "New" rave that gets me- from what I've seen the title hasn't been chosen out of a desire to make something actually, new, as in, push the boat out, it's to label yourself as cool rave but not like rave, which is for "sheeple", probably. I'm so bored of this already.

08:27 / 09.01.07

Can we please ditch the "taking it all too seriously" criticism? Because it's made on no basis whatsoever with no intended standard of the exact right amount of seriousness and is therefore pretty meaningless.

10:43 / 09.01.07

They're just a band - forget all that 'New Rave' nonsense.

Ah, but that would be so easy to do if they and their mates hadn't come up with the redundant hoxton wank-stick terminology themselves. As far as I can tell these bands have all come about because a bunch of ex-Camberwell and St Martins students needed some sort of hook to sell their electroclash knock-off clothes.

There is a new line of exactly this sort of thing being produced by Next or an equivalent High st store next season - coincidence?

Anyways, as Alex says, the Klaxons sound nothing and have nothing like the energy of rave. Some other bands do - like Bolt Action Five. They're alright...posy self-absorbed twits...but alright.

Regrettable Juvenilia

11:27 / 09.01.07

There is a new line of exactly this sort of thing being produced by Next or an equivalent High st store next season - coincidence?

No, Occam's Razor says it's more likely to be a KONSPIRACY!

"Hoxton" is a geographical area of East London. The adjective "hoxton" does not mean what you think it means, because it doesn't exist.

Anyway, back to The Klaxons. I really don't get how something like 'Golden Skans' resembles rave in any way, rather than just typical indie guitar nonsense, but you hear it more in the Crystal Castles remix of 'Atlantis To Interzone'. But I assume that's just the Crystal Castles - so does "nu rave" just mean guitar bands who happen to not hate dance music? I suppose it's preferable to the alternative if the alternative is Kasabian.

11:47 / 09.01.07

I assumed that New Rave meant rave that was, er, new; to distinguish it from old rave.

Hadouken have been pegged as New Rave, and sound much more like what I'd expected from that description than the Klaxons:

Hadouken on MySpace

11:50 / 09.01.07

No, Occam's Razor says it's more likely to be a KONSPIRACY!

Really? How quaint. If I may clarify, what I was suggesting in a general way was that 'new rave' is style over substance because that is how it originated - in a fashion designer's studio as opposed to a recording studio.

The manner in which this band have been marketed - vinyl only EPs, glow-stick spewing videos etc, is from my perspective at least, an attempt to polish the band's indie doodles with the neon-pink of Cologne/Berlin cool (if cool here can be considered shorthand for an aesthetically appealing and v.popular in dance music circles aesthetic).

So no, new rave isn't about indie kids who like dance music, but about indie kids who want sew the same clothes as their dance music friendly counterparts while still playing drums, bass, guitar and synth in the way the Killers have accustomed us to.

It's basically the logical step forward from grindie - another joke.

13:01 / 09.01.07

If there's any Konspiracy at work here I think it's probably somebody at the NME et al's strange obsession with trying to push this contrived, outdated idea of a non-existent dance/rock crossover upon the world every couple of years using whatever bunch of goons happen to be around at the time... they seem to have been at it for at least 15 years, and it's always been fucking ghastly.

Remember Happy Mondays, Campag Velocet, Lo-Fidelity Allstars... good god.

I like these guys song titles though. Maybe they should give up on music and start a second-hand bookshop in New Cross Gate or something.

Phex: Dorset Doom

15:36 / 09.01.07

Dear Forum Mods,

Please change the thread summary to the following 'Burroughs, Pynchon, Ballard, Crowley, rave music- the Klaxons are crap but thank GWAR* that they aren't nearly as bad as Hadouken- I mean, Jesus Christ, Klaxons may sound like music made by and for public schoolboys who make sweaty fools of themselves by dying on the floor of Indie clubs after half an ecstasy washed down with a Snakebite 'n' Black but Hadouken sound like music made by and for the handful of cha- young working class gentlemen who haunt same clubs picking off the Klaxonites' girlfriends like seagulls eating newly hatched sea turtles with beaks made of WKD and Sambuca'.

Kisses,

Phex

* From GWAR's Myspace: GWAR commands you to bow in utter and abject abeyance to the WAR PARTY. With one chop of a bloody battle-axe, GWAR decapitates the leadership of all political movements, and proclaims themselves the only and true overlords of this wretched planet and all beings that cling to it. And yet the NME ignores them completely. Baffling.

Regrettable Juvenilia

07:28 / 10.01.07

You have some issues, don't you, m'man?

Essential Dazzler

20:33 / 16.02.07

I really like Hadouken.

It must be my shark-eyed half showing through. My dad is a joiner y'know.

Perhaps Phex is a bit of a pri- phallic object

11:55 / 19.02.07

Rizla> Remember Happy Mondays, Campag Velocet, Lo-Fidelity Allstars... good god.

Right, outside, now!!! Except Campag Velocet - slag them all you want.

Lo-Fi's made one superb record - the remix of Battleflag.

12:20 / 19.02.07

I absolutely loved the Lo-Fi Allstars album when it came out.

Don't think I'd like it much now.

You're right though, they gave me some heavy fun-ness as a teenager and then (I'm assuming) sank into unloved oblivian, so I shouldn't slag them off just for the sake of it.

21:19 / 19.02.07

I'm convinced that the Klaxons are either an urban myth or a 'nothing band'.

Apparently they've been getting played here heaps on Triple J, but I never actually here any of their songs, I only hear the back announcement...

Are the Klaxons the musical equivalent to Big Foot?

Phex: Dorset Doom

21:34 / 19.02.07

Well, if they're Bigfoot then this thread has made history by having a picture of Bigfoot, a link to Bigfoot's Myspace page and now a link to this video, in which Bigfoot half-heartedly dances around in a colorful sweater to his insipid music.
But the Klaxons can't be Bigfoot: he's hanging with the Beastie Boys.

07:33 / 20.02.07

Apparently they've been getting played here heaps on Triple J, but I never actually here any of their songs, I only hear the back announcement...

I shouldn't worry about it, I get the same thing with most modern bands.

Less of a bigfoot thing, more of a UFO memory blank brought on by music with no distinctive properties whatsoever.

18:01 / 21.03.07

I discovered this band and their album Myths Of The Near Future yesterday, and have heard the album a couple of times since then. I´m at a loss why they should be considered crap. Is it their marketing? Except for the songs themselves I only have the CD cover as info, so I listened to the music without any knowledge, I might have otheriwse gleaned from a magazine or the TV.

They remind me of The Coral (Spanish Main, Skeleton Key, etc.), the same lively energy and drive. So far, I haven´t listened to the lyrics much, but I´ve noticed the barbcentric titles. That´s a nice extra to the songs, and if you´re interested in such themes, check out John Zorn´s albums I.A.O. and Moonchild (especially for the really nice booklets).

I don´t know where any of the Klaxons sound could be considered rave. I´d file it under solid popular rock music.

Janean Patience

11:03 / 22.03.07

I don´t know where any of the Klaxons sound could be considered rave. I´d file it under solid popular rock music.

Yeah, I saw the Gravity's Rainbow video last night and, while trying to work out what the connection was between the lyrics and the novel, was surprised by the sheer pedestrian indieness of the music. I thought they'd at least be fucking up a different genre. This is an indie single through and through, guitar-heavy with a few phased keyboard effects in the background. Which doesn't make it rave; it makes it, at best, 1980s.

uncle retrospective

11:24 / 01.07.07

I just got the album and I feel sick.
I really like it. Indie pop fun. Jesus I like it more than the new SFA album.
I may have to hand in my muso card.

Jawsus-son Starship

16:31 / 01.07.07

The albulm has some good moments, but they are also terribly bland. especially live. I aw them at the 02 festival the other week, and they were terrible.