After the première of the lacklustre ‘There Is No Other Time’, the first new Klaxons track in over three years, it appeared that the once-mighty nu-rave titans were doomed to fall into oblivion. Taking their generic, Crystal Fighters-aping indietronica with them in the process. However, with the release of the second track from their double-A side it seems that a sliver of hope may exist for the former cultural phenomenon.
With the help of The Chemical Brother’s Tom Rowlands behind the desk, the band’s idiosyncrasies have been injected back in to their sound, resulting in a texture-sprawling ride akin to the latter material of MGMT. However, whereas MGMT give the impression that they take pleasure in pissing off as many fans as possible with their self-indulgent tributes to Flaming Lips b-sides, Klaxons intention is still to write a pop song, no matter how off-kilter that song may be. This gives the track focus, its efforts to be irreverent never majorly outweighing its attempts at creating hooks and generating euphoria. The outcome manages to achieve both of these things.
Whilst its energetic approach to psych-pop isn’t going to convince people to start dousing themselves in neon paint again, ‘Children of the Sun’ is a refreshing splash of colour in a glum and all-too-serious pop landscape.
8/10
‘Children of the Sun’ is released on March 23rd via Sony Music.
