A privileged few may have booked the first available seats on Virgin Galactic's maiden outer-space voyage for 2009, but they needn't have bothered come April 21st 2008, as Australia’s masters of intergalactic space revelry, the Midnight Juggernauts, launch their debut album Dystopia onto an unsuspecting musical public. Interstellar space travel has never been quite so within arm's reach, available to one and all in a single concentrated 50-minute supersonic burst. In the Midnight Juggernauts' Dystopia constellation a line can be traced from the modern symphony of M83 and Air, all the way back to the electronic psychedelia of CAN and the pop smarts of Electric Light Orchestra. John Carpenter is in the director's chair, Georgio Moroder's compiling the soundtrack, and Goblin is screaming from the shadows.

Throughout its 13 tracks Dystopia lays a common thread of vigilant optimism, although it's a mood often shrouded with a dark and sinister disposition. The relentless stomp of techno-meets-disco singles 'Road To Recovery', 'Shadows' and 'Tombstone' scored the band high-rotation airplay indie radio Australia wide, while further into the stratosphere they've been pounced on by BBC1 and MTV2 UK/Europe. The formula is tweaked with glittering results on album tracks like 'Into The Galaxy', 'Twenty Thousand Leagues' and 'Nine Lives', while introspective departures (such as the title track or album closer 'Aurora') or abrasive moments ('Intro' and 'Scorpius') display a luscious and darker side to the band’s exterior.

Midnight Juggernauts released their debut album independently through their own label Siberia Records, entering the Australian top 20 last August. This has granted them complete creative freedom and also kept them open to growing interest from around the world, and they recently inked a licensing deal for their label Siberia through Capitol France to distribute Dystopia on a global scale this May. Upon entering the studio to begin their Dystopia journey Vincent and Andy - the band’s original nucleus - made the decision to invite a third member into the fold. Daniel Stricker (drums/vox) accepted the challenge, and the band's live show has reaped the rewards. Now an even more dynamic and energetic experience.

Personally invited by French wunderkind's Justice (who listed them in Pitchfork as their favorite new band) to support them on their world tour throughout the end of 2007, the Juggernauts impressed audiences from Los Angeles to London, and were one of the must see bands at CMJ in New York. Their tours have taken them from Arenas to Festivals to small warehouse gigs playing with bands such as Klaxons, !!!, Crystal Castles, The Pixies, Holy Fuck, Surkin and others – and they’ve done it all on their own. As 2008 begun they played the mainstage of Australia's legendary Big Day Out, invited M83 to tour with them in Australia, with the jewel in America's festival crown - Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival - coming up next, as well as an extensive run of shows in the UK, Europe, US and Japan planned to coincide with Dystopia's international release.

Critical acclaim for the Midnight Juggernauts has been unrelenting, with Dystopia topping several 'Best of the Year' lists well before its international release including Ed Banger mainman Busy P listing Dystopia as The Years best album to American magazine XLR8R. The response is no less rapturous in the UK, in publications such as the NME and Drowned In Sound.

Cinematic in its scope, Dystopia is the sound of a band exploring time and space. It's like watching new stars burn into existence, and then disappear in a single flash. It's the sound of a black hole imploding under the weight of a sweat-soaked, heaving dance floor. It's the future - past and present - all rolled into one, but it's like nothing you've ever experienced before.

"With hints of prog-rock and ’70s sci-fi themes, Dystopia’s soaring synth melodies, falsetto-laden choruses, and unironic grandness are utterly infectious."
- XLR8R

"A stunning record, Dystopia flows from one surreal track to the next, with the resonance of a film score that could have been produced in 1981 or somewhere in the distant future, giving it a sense of timelessness achieved by few."
- Lifelounge

"Like The Rapture with John Carpenter ..s, their pummelling space-disco is the perfect bridge between Bloc Party's indie elegies and a synapse-shredding Justice DJ set"
- NME

Favourite new band: Midnight Juggernauts. Favourite songs of the Year: Midnight Juggernauts - Into The Galaxy
- Pitchfork (chosen by Justice)

Album of the Year: Midnight Juggernauts - Dystopia
- XLR8R (chosen by Busy P)

"Destined to do for electronic music in Australia what Daft Punk's Homework did in France a decade ago - start a movement nationally and turn heads worldwide - the debut set from this Melbourne/Sydney trio is an elegantly storming set of lucious grooves topped off with sci-fi imagery and prog-rock echoes. 9/10.
- Sydney Morning Herald

"Listening to Dystopia, the outstanding debut set from Melbourne’s Midnight Juggernauts, may break a few listening habits you’ve long held true. For a start, it comes with an intro piece that could be an outtake to the Blakes’s 7 score: space symphonies are an enduring motif on the album, linking the contemporary beats to the full spectrum of prog shadings that the group casually but carefully integrate. You may have ducked keyboard pomp until now, but the duo makes it work as a rich texture that offsets their industry. To put it another way, Air’s effort’s to channel Rick Wakeman have been shot down by this disc.
From the relentless thump of ‘Ending of an Era’ onwards, Dystopia is joyous but never facile. It surges but doesn’t always smile, taking in all kinds of astral tweaks: late 70s Bowie, Krautrock and Giorgio Moroder at his iciest. The lyrics – per the album’s title – reflect on endings and collapse, but the tunes serve only to build in scale. ‘Worlds Converged’ is melancholic electronica, while ‘Road to Recovery’ remains a thrilling Daft Punk gambit. Quite when two mates from Melbourne who used to play the odd gig and had christened themselves after various dictators became the country’s leading electronic act is unclear, but that title is more than earned by the breadth and sheer impressiveness of this collection. And if it sounds like it exists in a galaxy far, far away, then zero in on the brilliant ‘Into The Galaxy’. Just when it sounds like it’s gone overboard with the martial strutting, there’s a rock & roll refrain to bring it back home: “G-L-O-R-I-A”. Amen."
- Mess + Noise