Myths of the Near Future

Run of the mill early 2000s indie - it is a Good album, but I don’t understand why it it’s on the list

For some reason, the band's name sounds familiar, but I can't remember when or where I heard it. I mostly enjoyed the album. I think I'll listen to it again, though not anytime soon. 4/5

This was pretty cool! I wasn’t really into this kind of scene at the time. I always got a bit annoyed by Golden Skans, but probably because it was so overplayed on morning radio. It’s actually pretty good listening now with fresh ears, and that goes for the album as a whole too. It’s got lots of energy, and the compositions are sound. I like the vocal layering they add in, as well as the literary references.

Would I listen to this regularly…? No… but it is pretty decent, and I appreciate it a bit more now.

I fondly remember the singles from (what we are now calling) the Indie Sleaze era in London. I think they still hold up.

Not that many other standouts across the album though. Decent dance punk vibes.

📢📢📢 / 5

I don’t think the Klaxons fully made it over here in North America; for every 30 times I heard Time to Pretend on the radio, I heard Gravity’s Rainbow or As Above So Below maybe once. This meant I actually appreciated when one of their songs came on and I never developed a knee jerk reaction to change the radio station when I heard the first few notes of their songs. That said, they also didn’t have as much staying power and I don’t think I’ve even thought of them since 2009 or so.

I enjoyed listening to this again today. Early 2000s indie electro-pop sound. A bit closer to the electro-punk side. Maybe like electro-pop-punk? Definitely not my favourite genre of music any more, but I did go through a bit of an early 2000s indie phase last year and dove back into a bunch of their contemporaries like Sunset Rubdown, Destroyer, Frog Eyes, Wolf Parade, etc. Might add Klaxons to that list next time I feel like revisiting these bands.

An unexpectantly fun album.

Better than Coldplay

A couple songs in and I can tell this will be a slog. Mid 2000s dance pop with some indie elements thrown in. Not exactly my style. I enjoyed some of the bass tones on this record but can't really say that anything else stuck out to me. It's Brit dance pop, and mediocre at that. 2/5

Solid album. I had fun listening to it. I like the noisy guitars and bass forward instrumentals. I think other bands were doing this dance punk style a little better though. Favorites were Golden Skans, Totem On The Timeline, and Gravity’s Rainbow.

Golden Skans casts a huge shadow over this album as the only track i remember before listening (by the Klaxons full stop).

The first track us ok, but ‘Atlantis to interZone’ is a difficult listen, especially given it leads to the aforementioned’Golden Skans’ which i dont think you can really fault.
I enjoyed the energy of ‘Totem on the Timeline’ which has that mid 2000s guitar sound to it, which makes me think of Maccabees, who i think more worthy of a place on this list.

‘Magick’ is frankly irritating.

I’d forgotten ‘It’s not over yet’ which gives ‘Golden Skans’ a run for it’s money in the infectious stakes.
The least said about ‘For Horsemen’ the better

This feels like a pretty middling album for me, but with two standout tracks that I love - Golden Skans and It's Not Over Yet. The former has been used by the BBC for festival coverage loads of times so the ooo-wee-ooos are firmly wedged in my subconscious. The later was a big single when released and I've always liked it.

The rest of the album I enjoyed, but it is far less instantly catchy for me. I wouldn't turn it off, but wouldn't rush to put it on either. It fair belts along as a record though, at a trim 36 minutes.

Ultimately a perfectly acceptable:

3/5

felt cringe for reasons i can’t explain but was reminiscent of a cbbc original series soundtrack

I have to admit that I thought everyone agreed that Myths of the Near Future was a fantastic album. It might be because it arrived just as I was getting into music at 14 years old, but all I hear is a series of extremely fun, high energy, off kilter dance-punk songs with an interesting "nu rave" aesthetic. I love the fat, low bit-rate synths that are surely the same Casio keyboards I grew up with in school ("dig it!") The absurdist lyrics and falsetto delivery are unusual and iconically theirs. I love the fact that they are always in search of a new hook.

It’s a shame that when they came to write album two they ended up taking too many drugs in a cabin in the forest. Everything they'd developed ultimately had to be scrapped when the labels were displeased, the eventual follow up album was not much to write home about either. They never quite recovered from that!

This is quite the throwback band here. For those who don't know, Klaxons were at the forefront of the new rave movement, an offshoot of indie rock and alternative dance that dominated the British alternative scene in the late 2000s. Though really, the movement started as an in-joke by frontman Jamie Reynolds that quickly became a youth subculture for a short while. I know for me, I remember these gents for the single "Golden Skans", which appeared on the soundtrack for European versions of the game Guitar Hero On Tour: Modern Hits. In fact, they were featured on multiple video game soundtracks at the time. That said, how does their debut, Myths of the Near Future, hold up?

Honestly, this record was really damn good. The easiest way to describe the style of this album is dance-punk with elements of electronica. Reynolds's infectious basslines, Simon Taylor's crunchy guitars, James Righton's haunting keyboards, and Steffan Halperin and James Ford's punchy drums made for manic energy throughout these songs, further bolstered by the rather pleasant two-octave vocal delivery from Reynolds and Righton. Even when the momentum is dialed back for a few tracks like "Golden Skans" and "As Above So Below", there's enough power in the performance to keep it engaging.

As for the lyrics, Reynolds and Taylor get rather creative with the imagery they wanted to incorporate. After all, the album title is derived from a collection of science-fiction short stories by J. G. Ballard. As such, Klaxons made their debut with a loose concept album that touches upon themes and ideas within the genre, as the band tried to envision what the future would be like. It certainly adds a level of mystique to the record, allowing the band to get poetic, such as the way they describe rave lights on "Golden Skans", the exploration of sexual deviancy at the club on "Totem on the Timeline", or getting lost in love with someone on "Gravity's Rainbow". I'm sure the band got cheeky with their borrowing of fantastical elements, right down to casting themselves as the bringers of the apocalypse on closing track "Four Horsemen of 2012". But I consider the infused levity enjoyable, paired well with their abrasive dance-punk styling.

Color me impressed with Myths of the Near Future. It's a kooky, madcap record that showcased a band going for broke from the jump. Of course, the band would move away from the sound of their debut, and later disband in 2015. If anything, this album was a fun time capsule from such a weird period for alternative music.

Like the previous album I had, it feels a bit inconsequential. This one was quite a good album though. It just gets gradually noisier and crazier as it goes. Struggle to think of any songs that stood out, as one does after 800+ albums. The whole experience was pretty nice however. Dance Punk-esque music that seems very of the era.

I regret dismissing this album as "bank manager at topman" music - it was actually a very fun listen. :)

Nothing original here….move along….

2

Meh- didn’t do much for me, but I didn’t hate it

It’s not good. Peak fifa music. I don’t think anyone particularly thought it was good at the time either which makes it a confusing addition to the list. Not offensive.

I didn’t full on hate it but it shouldn’t be on this list.