Klaxons - Love Frequency

Klaxons
Love Frequency
16 June 2014
Akashic

2 stars out of 5

 

It’s difficult to understate just how ridiculous it is for Klaxons to release their third LP, Love Frequency, in this, the year we collectively refer to as 2014. It’s an LP that’s instantly dated, and in the world of dance music, to seem even a few months behind the times can be a death sentence. When Klaxons sing “There Is No Other Time” one is moved to disagree most vehemently, “Of course there is! It was fucking 2007, dudes!” Even worse, tracks like “Show Me a Miracle” are only a few millimetres removed from NSYNC, and there are very few instances in which that could be considered a good thing.

The difference between Love Frequency and 2007’s Myths of the Near Future (apart from the obvious era-inappropriateness) is that the band’s rather fun debut had personality. MotNF was a hand-crafted fig fennel loaf served with Roquefort cheese and organic Bosc pear slices, whereas LF is stale Wonder Bread that’s beginning to develop mould. I mean, yes, technically you could dance to it, but you could also dance to a sample of my fist punching your face if someone set the tempo to 120 bpm and added some ambient goat sounds. (If you actually do this, I demand half of the composer royalties, motherfucker.) Upon learning that Love Frequency took some three years to record, jaws are bound to drop in wonder at how uninteresting and unimportant a final product could result from such a long process. Peter Gabriel takes three years to record half a song, and while it might not be your cup of tea, at least you would acknowledge that those two or three minutes are going to be packed with detail, intricacies, and a sign that someone was awake during the recording process and making a real effort to push the envelope. It seems like Klaxons spent those three years systematically erasing all of the elements that made them even remotely interesting, and the result is the sterile No Name Brand product that is defiling my ears at this very moment.

The only track on here worth checking out is “Atom to Atom,” but don’t be fooled—the remainder of the album is far below this song, which itself would be a B-side by any other band, or filler to pad out a double-CD at best. This is faint praise for a weak track, but this is as good as it gets here, folks. Enjoy doing whatever it is you were doing that wasn’t listening to this record, because it was probably a lot less boring, no matter what it was.

reviewed by Richard Krueger