- Love Frequency is the new record from UK indie act and one-time nu-rave revivalists, The Klaxons. More than four years since the band’s last release, Surfing The Void it’s a refreshing twist on a familiar sound that will likely produce some of the most memorable live festival moments of the year.

Since their Mercury Prize winning debut in 2007, The Klaxons have enjoyed successful tour slots and garnered a swag of accolades, but now it seems they’ve stepped away from their previous work and created an album that is decidedly less indie. It’s been a long time since Golden Skans and Gravity’s Rainbow and it’s natural that a band’s sound should progress away from their early work but Love Frequency, instead of bringing new life, really just feels a little unimaginative by contrast.

The album opens with New Reality, a post-punk / new-wave track dominated by dance floor beats that hint at some of the more mainstream dance track techniques that are to follow. Lead single There Is No Other Time is all about the big beats, highly polished production and uncomplicated lyrics. It is actually one of three self-produced tracks on the album including Show Me A Miracle and Atom to Atom, all of which share a subtle difference to the rest of the tracks handled by The Chemical Brothers and James Murphy. Show Me A Miracle is a summery dance anthem seemingly inspired by more retro-electro acts, with simple lyrics and catchy synths that take more than a few nods from Hot Chip.

Children of the Sun seems like a natural step from Surfing The Void, it hints at the experimentalism the band were aiming for with that record, a vision that was supposedly curtailed by their record label at the time. The heavy bass, quirky synth riffs and eerie falsetto vocals may make Children of the Sun the weirdest track on the album, but Liquid Light was definitely the most unexpected. The three-minute instrumental track filled with shimmering synths and sparse piano lines that are overlayed by a minimalist sample: the track provides a moment of respite that works well at this stage.

It will no doubt be a contested point, but the biggest letdown on this record is the lyrics. Each track appears to have been plagarised from spirituality-for-idiots guide: pat, predictable platitudes that drag every other element down. Dance doesn't need complex lyricism, but many of the tracks just aren’t good enough to hold up on their own, musically either. The Klaxons have abdicated their throne as genre trailblazers. You'd think, given how long Love Frequency was in the making, they could've come up with something more substantial. Maybe they over-thought it and everything collapsed inwards. Or perhaps they just decided: “who cares, let's dance.”

- Clare Armstrong.