Midnight Juggernauts - 'Dystopia' (Charisma) Released 26/05/08

You can blame it on Klaxon’s impressive homebrew of sci-fi pop rock and old school rave aesthetic sensibility or you can blame it on Justice covering ‘Master of Puppets’ in their live shows. You can blame it on the popularity of ‘Guitar Hero’ if you like. Frankly you can blame it on whatever takes your fancy because the fact stands tall: Everyone wants to rock out more at the moment, particularly musical acts that may have been swiftly shoved into an electro dance straightjacket in more archaic musical times.  

The latest addition to this phenomenon are Midnight Juggernauts, an Australian three-piece already endorsed by David Bowie and dragged across continents as live support to many of the aforementioned pioneers of modern rock n rave.

Thankfully, in what is already becoming an overcrowded space they bring a sense of fresh vitality to the cross pollination of genres and have more than a few tricks up their velvet lined sleeves. After a brief cinematic introduction, ‘Ending of an Era’ sets the pace and builds up perfectly, coming on like a caffeinated Sebastien Tellier and combining some great falsetto vocals with a sense of hypnotic, creeping unease. Then, without any warning ‘Into the Galaxy’ blows our minds to absolute smithereens, resembling synth and laser obsessed wizard Jean-Michel Jarre collaborating with Daft Punk and Talking Heads. It will make you want to quickly abandon any thoughts of a quiet night in and become a Jibber-Jabbering wreck on the nearest dance floor. As if that wasn’t enough, the track is underpinned with a sense of melancholy and an insidious glam rock stomp that is impossible to resist.

After setting such a ridiculously high standard so early, it would perhaps be too easy for their debut LP to trail off and lose focus. That is why we’re so very pleasantly surprised when they keep the quality control, distorted fuzz, distinctive vocals, rhythmic bass lines and general brilliance turned up high throughout the entire journey. 

Just when you think that you have them all figured out, ‘Worlds Converged’ throws an absolute curveball by sounding like a less cerebral version of TV on the Radio, twisted disco and spaced out introspection becoming unlikely companions.

On ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues’, Midnight Juggernauts complement a creepy John Carpenter style soundtrack with such a close approximation of the Thin White Duke’s vocal that he would probably be calling his lawyer if he didn’t already like them so much.

This is all before we even get to ‘Tombstone’, which sounds absolutely immense, a frantic tune that will no doubt be keeping Hot Chip awake at night for some time and could shake the pillars and foundations of most Roman Colosseums, let alone Fabric on a Friday night. ‘Dystopia’ never reveals a single dull second, it is continually surprising and doesn’t lose momentum. This alone establishes the band as serious contenders to the much coveted dance rock crown.           

 It may speak volumes about current ‘Indie’ music that the most exciting albums across the globe are now being created by bedroom dance scientists, those without regard for tradition or genre distinction. ‘Dystopia’ is a series of controlled explosions in dance and dissonance, effortlessly traversing a broad palette of genres and blowing preconceptions out of the water time after time.