Magical Music Roundabout: Fluo Flashover, Klaxons Return.

Fears and preoccupations of New Cross' Klaxons having been smooched by the Mercury Prize's kiss of death, sailing away down the kaleidoscopic milky way upon which they first glimmered indie light years ago (1 NME indie year=approximately 2.5 months. Probably...) have been rife for many a moon phase now. A fair old heap of attitudes, styles, governments and sciences change in three years and in our consumerist society where music's dictated by Hype Machine hearts and instant file sharing, the quest to remain relevant's a trickier task than back in the days Mansun just had to fling their fops about on Top Of The Pops for a bank account boost. What place would "Nu Rave", glowsticks and sequined capes have in the chillwave ice age of 2010 without the aid of cryogenic freeze tactics? When Klaxons released their Myths Of The Near Future Woolworths still snaffled most pre-pubescent pocket money and perhaps a bargain bucket in the Bracknell branch, were it still knocking high street contemporaries' credentials up a notch or two, the fad that was "Nu Rave" would presumably inhabit its media bargain bucket alongside Hard-Fi and Shallow Hal.

Thankfully then, Flashover, the quartet's first vaguely coherent recording to surface bar a couple of scatty live demos telling tales of Moonheads and Valleys filled with Calm Trees, sees the troupe maturing slowly but surely, like Glastonbury cheddar, into the rough'n'ready off-kilter pop gargantuans they always threatened to morph into, primarily through channeling Grace's ecstatic 90s pop gem Not Over Yet into a bleary-eyed, sweaty synth blur. Still pertaining to lyrical vagueness focused on "myriads of silver discs" that whir about bowel-churning bass distortion and intoxicating vocal cacophony. Now about that Friday night Pyramid Stage headline vacancy...