Myths of the Near Future

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

Made me think of Jesus Jones. Indie Rock trying to keep up with the latest tech.

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll bump up to a 5.

Yeah, I don’t know what the fuck any of that was about either. It’s in the title though; “Myths of the Near Future”. This is all some bullshit. That’s the part that made it work for me. Normally, I’m incredibly anal about storytelling & how lyrics can craft a picture in relation to the soundscape, and for the start of this album, I was left utterly baffled by a lot of what they were saying. Something about the soundscapes & production work felt captivating though, and by the time I got to “As Above, So Below”, it finally hit me that this album’s biggest strength is saying all of this shit with the confidence like it’s already normal. These are songs designed to be from the “near future” – we’re 19 years out from when this dropped & I would still argue they might be from a bit farther into the future. As Marty McFly once famously said, we’re not ready for it yet… but our kids are gonna love it. It’s not as radical of a change as say, giving Mozart an iPod with Death Grips on it, but more like giving a 1920s folk singer a vinyl of American Pie. Familiar, yet unusual.

In essence, this is an instrumental album with lyrics that mostly act as placeholders for sci-fi pictures the mind can only conceive. I fuck with that heavy conceptually, and it certainly helps that the instrumentals themselves just knock it out of the park. “New rave” is definitely a crummy descriptor for what this ends up being, which is significantly closer to some kind of electronica-infused Madchester with a touch of the indie rock revival of the mid-2000s thrown in – slightly heavy pulsing drums, soft wall of sound guitar work that still lets a melody cut through it, some groovy basslines, and just enough vocal filtering to maintain a grittier feel throughout. It’s still just a bit off-kilter from the typical stuff of this era, creating that “familiar yet unusual” tone. The one time this album hit a misstep for me was “Isle of Her”, which just feels like the most plain / flat track in comparison to the rest of this weird world established throughout the album.

That single misstep, however, is nowhere near enough to bump this down for me. Once again, a Mercury Prize winner has come through for my tastes. I think this is an easy bump up to a 5. It’s a speedy 36 minutes that barely slows down, and once you get into the groove of its weird alt-future tones, it’ll just feel encapsulating in a way that makes you wonder why more bands don’t just try to predict the trends of the future more fruitfully. I really enjoyed it & I’m very glad it’s on the list.

Boy oh boy do i love it when i get to hand out surprise 5 star reviews and Myths Of The Near Future is one such album that is getting just that. Everything about this album is exactly what i'm here for on this project. It's weird, wacky and definitely different from the rest of the crowd yet still manages to be a catchy, frenetic, fun trip throughout. Every time that i thought that the album hit it's peak and i would think it would run out of ideas, it would always hit me with a new one and also manage to do it so well regardless of how weird the song was. I genuinely don't have any complaints for this album so all i'll say is its a very fun album i'm glad i got to hear before i died.
Best Song: Isle Of Her
Worst Song: Gravity's Rainbow

Not really my thing! They alternate between poppy/forgettable and harsh/abrasive experimentation that sounds a bit sloppy if I'm being real.

The "hidden" song at the end was perhaps my favourite moment in the album, funnily enough. I've no idea where those spooky soundscapes would've fit elsewhere in the album, but they're the most unique and interesting idea on display. Hilarious move to jumpscare unassuming CD listeners with it.

Standouts: Atlantis To Interzone • Golden Skans • Four Horsemen of 2012

Good grief no. Weirdly hailed as some kind of "saviour of rock" for a generation that came marginally after The Strokes etc. when it was just a less good version with an electro hint.

Stop it Robert, you're being silly.

Me gusta la vibra de este álbum, quizás en un futuro lo vuelva a escuchar, pero siendo honesto no me pareció la gran cosa, un poco más de lo mismo. O sea no es malo, simplemente es escuchable.
Esos 15 minutos de silencio en el último track ¿?

Jamais écouté avant.

Ma note est sévère, mais elle correspond à un album qui, à mes yeux, n'est pas du tout honteux, pas du tout raté, mais qui a un énorme défaut : il manque singulièrement d'originalité. Klaxons sonne comme Franz Ferdinand qui aurait trois ans de retard, aurait perdu son sens de l'humour et essaierait d'expérimenter les textures électroniques cradingues. Comme témoignage sur le son d'une époque du rock indé britannique qui n'aura finalement pas duré si longtemps, pourquoi pas, parmi les 1000 et quelques albums les plus importants de l'histoire, c'est un peu léger.

Top : Totem on the Timeline
Flop : Magick

Es zeigt die Truppe als hyperaktive Alchemisten des New Rave: grelle Synths, jagende Rhythmen, ein ständiges Flirren zwischen Indie‑Rock und Club‑Euphorie. Stücke wie „Golden Skans“ funkeln sofort, andere verlieren sich etwas im überdrehten Stilmix. Das Album wirkt frisch, aber auch sprunghaft – mehr aufregendes Versprechen als vollendetes Werk.

You know, wasn't looking forward to an album by a band named Klaxons (terrible band name).

But ended up enjoying it quite a bit. Kinda post-punk (but not really, maybe in that 2000's indie/garage rock way, but still not really) by way of noise rock, which I haven't really heard before.

Second half of the record was especially good.

Album's got a great vibe. Definitely gonna be going back to this.

Damn, I tried to tell myself that this album is not so emotionally loaded for me but hell, it is. And so goddamn good piece of music from that moment in time. So good to be back (i've never left).

Engaging, melodic, and upbeat alt rock that is easily relistenable due to its perfect length.

love this album, have done since the day it was released. I vividly remember seeing the video for Magick for the first time and I was hooked.

Top Track - Gravity’s Rainbow

Myths of the Near Future starts with a reasonable argument for itself. The energy is real, the musicianship is clear, and the early variability suggests a band with genuine chops operating at the center of a specific cultural moment — the brief nu-rave intersection of indie rock and rave culture that briefly made Klaxons the most talked-about band in Britain. For a stretch, the craft keeps it in respectable territory.
Then “Magick” arrives, and the case starts collapsing. What some listeners find anthemic and hypnotic lands here as actively annoying — the chanted repetition and processed vocals crossing from atmospheric into grating without warning. The track that follows doubles down with a synth texture that seems purposefully engineered to increase anxiety rather than create momentum. The intent is clear. The payoff isn’t there.
The closing track delivers the final verdict — a metal-adjacent section with distorted vocals that feels more ridiculous than dangerous, the kind of swing that needs to land perfectly to work and doesn’t. By the end the variability and chops that initially kept this above the 2 threshold have been outweighed by a record that spent its second half actively wearing out its welcome.
A 2 that reflects a genuine listen rather than a snap judgment — the craft is real, the moment was real, and the music still isn’t remotely for this particular listener. Sometimes that’s just the honest answer.

This started off really badly but got better as the album went along. Each song is a pretty simple idea that just gets repeated endlessly, which makes the 36 minutes feel more like 66. That said, some of those ideas are interesting.

2.5/5.0: Mixed

another run of the mill british indie rock album

Competent but completely unremarkable.

Every song starts out with such great promise! Then goes to shit when the vocals come in.

Not a great deal to say other than that I didn't really vibe with it.

Science-fictional rave, a dance-punk revival, & at times aggressive metal, at least vocally and guitar-wise ('Atlantis To Interzone'), Myths Of The Near Future (Ballard) is, in the end, a proper pop record, nothing more and not much less. Very well produced, full of literary references, & easy to take down, it's yet not a memorable or meaningful thing, neither musically nor conceptually. What they're getting at, no one knows and no one cares; the Pynchon/Burroughs/Ballard footnotes are annoying. 'Night touched my hands / W/ the turning, golden skans'; 'Galloping, galloping beams faster'; 'All ships of sense on hyper ocean / All kinds of chaos still in motion.' It's a watered-down, unnecessary recall of Joy Division, w/o any of the dignity.