Fresh from the cult success of debut single ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ earlier this year, Klaxons (that’s Jamie, Simon and James to their local vicar) return with another joyful racket that marries post punk sensibilities with their deep love of rave and classic pop culture that sticks like knives out of their every chord change.

Touching down in 2006 from a place undetermined to wrestle the hearts and minds of the nations music lovers from last year’s seemingly all-pervading po-faced, post-punk moroseness, the band describe their sound as Josef K-meets-Baby D with a twinkle in their eye, surely the first to mention those names in the same sentence. One listen to ‘Atlantis To Interzone’ and the several miles of dots between those influences are quickly joined, where screaming sirens and samples straight out of a field in ‘89 give way to the punked out half-falsetto, half melodic breakneck vocals and drums.

On the B Side, ‘4 Horsemen of 2012’ lurches out demonically from a world of distortion and drummatic madness, stuffing the peaks and breakdowns into two and a half minutes of pop meltdown. If ever a band were all about the moment, all about Myspace as a progression of rave cultures underground communication, and all about creating a live experience every bit as exhilarating as their singles, then Klaxons are they.

Gary Numan is having one of the most successful years of his career after releasing his first studio album in over 5 years in mid-March, 2006. Co-produced with underground electronic artist Ade Fenton, Jagged is an aggressive, forward-looking album which takes the best elements of his previous work and gives them an anthemic, contemporary twist. In April he set off on his biggest tour in years, a 14-date trip around the country in front of a visibly increasing fanbase, many of whom had never seen him play live before. The Jagged tour also received rave reviews in publications such as The Times, Kerrang and the Daily Telegraph.

'If 2000's Pure album brought Numan back into focus, then Jagged gives his music fresh shape and vitality.' Metal Hammer

'Jagged is a must for those who like their music dark and heavy.' The Sun

'Gary Numan now makes more sense than he did as a confused young pop droid. Endorsements from post-Goth noiseniks such as Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson have given Numan a new focus.' The Times

Unusually amongst his contemporaries Numan has come into his own in the 21st Century both as an artist and as an influence. In 2000, his Pure album was described as ‘the best music he’s made since his 1979/80 heyday’ by The Sunday Times, while Kerrang enthused, 'if you like your melancholia dense and dynamic, you won't want Pure to end.'

Three years later, he released Hybrid, an album of collaborations and re-worked version of classic tracks which included the Top 20 hit ‘Crazier’, featuring electronic punk Rico. According to Mojo, the album’s ‘sheer quality wins through . . . revealing the dark soul of a true pioneer’, while Time Out were not only ‘blown away’ by the revised versions but also noted the presence of ‘three tantalisingly good new songs’. At the time Numan was also ‘cool again’ thanks to Basement Jaxx’s sampling his songs on ‘Where’s Your Head At’ and the impact of Sugababes’s Number 1 single, ‘Freak Like Me’ which was based around his 1979 chart-topper, ‘Are ‘Friends’ Electric?’ Yet since then Numan’s cultural relevance has, if anything, grown stronger than ever before thanks to the likes of Goldfrapp, White Rose Movement, The Rapture, Queens Of The Stone Age, Jacques Lu Cont, The Faint and The Killers.

'Jagged tells reflective stories of loss, sorrow and regret through dark, creeping rhythms that lurk beneath sheets of guitar, tempered by heady, almost suffocating, synths. The result is a bleak emotional holocaust of an album, evidencing the work of a truly precious artist whose continuing creativity should be cherished.' Rocksound

''Without Gary Numan there would be no industrial scene. Jagged is his latest offering and is a million times more haunting than anything this modern-day scene has to offer. Each track is a dark and brooding slab of gothic beauty with Gary Numan proving to the likes of Manson and co once and for all who the daddy really is.' Big Cheese

'Jagged is aggressive and dark, yet doesn't forget to pack the tunes too.' Record Collector

'Powerful electronic rock . . . a dense, moody collection, it can be thunderous one moment and ethereal the next, forbidding and mysterious, grinding and soaring.' Classic Rock

Meanwhile, Jagged is one of the heaviest and most electronic albums of his career, re-wiring the apocalyptic synthesizer pop of Numan’s own ‘Down In The Park’ into something equally unique and powerful. Like his best albums it gets to the essence of Numan’s appeal - a vocal that is alienated yet strangely soulful; a desire to push technology as far as he can and dark, atmospheric sounds lashed to power chords dream-like melodies. Numan also mixes rock elements into the album through the sky-scraping choruses - especially on 'Fold', 'Haunted', 'Melt' and 'In A Dark Place' - but they’re given a new potency through the siren-like wail of machines as well as guitars. And for the first time in 20 years, Numan has re-introduced live drums onto the new album, including two tracks ‘Haunted’ and ‘Halo’ played by Jerome Dillon (ex- Nine Inch Nails). Rob Holliday (Sulpher and the Prodigy's new live guitarist) and Monti (Sulpher, former Curve drummer) also guest on Jagged, along with dance producer Andy Gray and Martin McCarrick (ex-Siouxsie & The Banshees) on cello.

'The beats are fresh, the incidental effects impact nicely and there's more energy here than there should be from someone who has been through the music industry mill for the last quarter of a century plus.' Future Music

'This is suitably atmospheric and rousing stuff, close in feel to the urban nightmare of 'Down In The Park' . . . One can only hope that this will mark a complete critical re-evaluation of such as visionary and misunderstood figure.' Zero Magazine