It was the Best of Days, It Was the End of Days…

If the end of the world has a soundtrack, then The Presets have provided it in the form of their new monolithic long player, Apocalypso. This rich, textural dark landscape is filled with party tunes galore, a mash of anthems, clever production and stunning moments of stark, delicate sentimentality. Apocalypso is The Presets all grown up – yes, they’re still loud, rowdy, larrikin fuelled music makers, but there’s a greater breadth of emotion, insight and intellect on this, their second studio album.

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‘We wanted to make an album that was bleak and cold and quite stark,’ explained lead singer Julian Hamilton. ‘The album is like an electronic sound wall, but then has some really melancholic, romantic warm forms layered throughout it.’

It’s Monday. Hamilton’s head is sore from celebrating the fact that Apocalypso debuted on the Australian charts at number one on Saturday. Despite the banging hangover, Hamilton – who sites classical composer Dmitri Shostakovich as a hero – is on a high. He’s exceptionally enthusiastic and excited on the phone from his Sydney home as he explains, with pride and delight, the opus that is Apocalypso.

‘When we wrote Apocalypso it – without getting too political – it was the end of the Howard era, which was a pretty bleak time,’ he said of the process behind writing this album with his partner in crime, Kim Moyes, the other half of The Presets. ‘We’d be watching the news and it would feel like the end of the world. It was a pretty horrible time. But Kim and I thought “No, you can still party and still screw and still love and still do these things,” so we wanted to make an album that was about love and about fucking but all taking place in a bleak place.

‘Even the artwork reflects that with a moonscape that’s very cold, but then we’re there in these very ridiculous party masks and crazy fun outfits. I guess that’s where we always saw our music living – that it can exist in a pretty crummy world, but that you can still exercise the fun out there to be had.’

Lead single from Apocalypso, the loud leery My People, has been the crossover smash hit The Presets have been waiting for. It’s been understandably thrashed on commercial radio, used for advertising on cable, and was the song of last summer. Now, the second single, This Boy’s in Love, is proving an even bigger runaway hit – but in a completely different direction. The icy techno track is infused with all the drama of Duran Duran and Tears For Fears, but with the most beautiful crystalline chorus you’ll ever hear – the perfect love song for the coming winter. And then there’s the video clip for This Boy’s In Love….

‘We were cringing while reading all these video treatments that had come in for the song,’ Hamilton explained of the $50 000 clip directed by Danish photographer Casper Balslev. ‘Treatments dealt with boy meets girl, boy meets girl being boring together, boy meets girl running away together. Finally we got this one treatment that read “two male models boy/men Greco-Roman fighting in a pool of milk”. And we just thought GOT IT!’

‘It is such a beautiful clip,’ sighed Hamilton of the clip which can currently be viewed on The Presets MySpace, myspace.com/thepresets. ‘Some people look at it and think that it’s quite homoerotic. I guess it is, but it’s more classical really. It’s like a Rembrandt painting or something. But I don’t think it’s like an old Duran Duran video where it’s just sex, sex, sex.’

And speaking of sex, the inevitable question arises: who would Hamiliton turn gay for?

‘Ah gee, such a hard question,’ he laughed. ‘I always wonder how to answer this when I watch it on Rove. Gee… I guess there are lots of good looking girls and boys out there – although my girlfriend would kill me for saying that. Hmmm, I guess I’d have to say I have something for those boys in those Rembrandt paintings.’

Apocalypso is out now in stores through Universal Music and is also available online at iTunes. After a whirlwind three week tour through America, The Presets hit home soil for a national tour with Perth getting all Apolcalypso on June 19 at Metropolis Fremantle. Tickets are available now online through heatseeker.com, although hurry – shows are selling out incredibly fast.

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Stay tuned, OUTinPerth will be posting a longer version of this article shortly!