Named after the father of the Neorealist movement, Gustav Klimt, and his year of death, it’s initially hard to pigeonhole this Italian band. Formed in 1999 and then playing Gothic Metal, something pretty damn significant clearly happened along the way. At first, the general Emo-ishness of it all uncomfortably reminds you of mainstream whiny-voiced piano-abusers Snow Patrol, but once you realise the amount of influence that the band takes from Post-Rock, it all clicks. Big, spacey riffs that fill the aural atmosphere with cotton wool, epic hook-laden vocals, energetic drumming – it’s Sigur Rós meets recent Katatonia, as played by U2!

Clearly this isn’t going to appeal to the most necro of you, but if you don’t mind hooks with your ear candy, then you’ll be in heaven. This is quite literally teetering on the edge of the mainstream – one hit video and it’s easy to imagine them getting serious radio play. As it is, all that holds them back is the production, which makes the ensuing racket quite noisy at times, verging on a ‘live’ sound. There’s not a great deal of difference between the songs; you’re virtually guaranteed to find at least one hook every two minutes or so, and the frequent brief yet atmospheric instrumental sections came pretty damn close to earning this a ‘progressive’ tag.

That it ultimately didn’t is no reflection on Klimt 1918 themselves, as there’s much to be excited about on Just In Case We’ll Never Meet Again (Music For The Cassette Generation) – to give it its full name – to worry about genres. All musicians involved are more than capable, writing big epic songs that stay with you for a long time after; the only point of difference may be vocalist Marco’s voice, which has a noticeable accent. The odds are, though, that if you’ve read this far without grunting in despair you’re quite capable of enduring someone who can actually sing, and you’ll come to love Klimt 1918.

In the end, the best way to approach Just In Case… is with complete and utter open-mindedness – forget those Emo aspects, forget that it sounds vaguely like something you accidentally heard on the radio the other week, forget what your Gorgoroth-loving mates would say if they came across it in your collection – just listen to a band that makes beautiful music, and appreciate them for that fact alone.