Klaxons - Surfing the Void Album Review

The Klaxon's long awaited follow-up Surfing The Void finally sees the light of day following reports in the tabloids and the music press that they were forced to re-record large parts of it by executives at Polydor.. Never has the term 'difficult 2nd album' been deemed more appropriate.

With this in mind it is difficult to know where the blame lies. 'Surfing the Void' is not an easy record to listen to, in fact I would even go as far as to say it's unlistenable. The band themselves declared the original incarnation of the album as being psychedelic and experimental when their record company wanted them to make a 'pop' record. I would certainly not describe it as any of these. However I would be interested in hearing the original, to see if record company interference has had an impact either way. If this is the popper version of the 2 recorded albums, one can only imagine how dense the first one is.

The album comes across like an electronic version of Blur, but not Blur in a good way. More like Blur when they're in danger of disappearing up their own arse. The Klaxons seems to be lacking songs and the tracks themselves are really trying to be too clever for their own good which means that either (1) they're operating on a higher plane or (2) it really is just unlistenable shite. I would opt for the latter. This is by far the worst album I've heard this year.

1/10

Scott Causer