Maximo Park

Maximo Park return with their first full length studio album in nearly four years as they release Nature Always Wins. It's close to 16 years since Maximo Park released their stunning, Mercury nominated, debut album, A Certain Trigger, with this their latest marking their seventh studio album to date. The Newcastle and Liverpool based band have been busy during lockdown putting the finishing touches to their new album with the help of Grammy award winner, Ben Allen, the new "fourth member" of the group.

Of the twelve tracks on the album four have already been released as singles; the album's closing track, Child Of The Flatlands, Baby Sleep and I Don't Know What I'm Doing from September onwards last year and more recently this year, All Of Me. The twelve selected tracks were chosen from the forty that the band were tasked with writing by their chosen producer. Duncan Lloyd explains, "we did everything from Why Must A Building Burn, which was acoustic-based, through to Meeting Up, which was synth-based. We could go electronic, we could go avant garde. And that helped us get to the tracks we eventually settled on."

Continue reading: Maximo Park - Nature Always Wins Album Review

Following the release of Maximo Park's sixth studio album, 'Risk To Exist', almost a month ago, and just ahead of a heavy schedule of festival dates, the band ushered in a new season of thrills and spills at Dreamland Pleasure Park in Margate. In the shadow of the Ferris wheel, beside the rattle of the 'Speedway' in The Hall By The Sea the boys from the North East came down to delight the people of the South-East.

The opening weekend of the heritage theme park had been largely blessed with glorious sunshine all day with beach goers and amusement lovers treated to one of the hottest days of the year. By the time Maximo Park had winged their way down south via London St Pancras and the high speed train link the temperatures were only just beginning to subside as the blue skies gave way to a twilight glow.

After the band played out a briefly extended instrumental intro charismatic lead singer Paul Smith also took to the stage to the excitement of the gathered crowd as they tore into the first track off of their latest album, 'What Did We Do To You To Deserve This?' With more moves than a Russian Grand Master Smith owned the stage from beginning to end as Maximo Park quickly set about a potent take on the title track, 'Risk To Exist'. The vocal was superbly set above the dynamics of the tightly bound band as the machine-gun drumming drilled through a blistering rendition of one the album highlights.

Continue reading: Maximo Park - Dreamland, Margate, Kent 27.05.17 Live Review

It only takes a cursory glance at the news most evenings (or an hour in downtown Taunton on a Saturday night) to know that, in 2017, it's a risk to exist. Maximo Park's sixth studio album grasps the contemporary global nettle, seeking to call out those who put lives at risk as the bastards they are. Simultaneously, it calls out for solidarity through common humanity. It was recorded in America two weeks before their 2016 election, so it bears the weighty despair of that unwholesome moral vortex. Unwittingly tapping into the zeitgeist yet further, it was released days after Theresa May opened up another wormhole in the time/truth continuum with the declaration of a UK general election.

How this album is received will depend on whether you've reached compassion fatigue yet, on the lyrics and on how hot you like your Maximo Park served. It stands to reason that many people are hacked off with the bluster of bluffing bureaucrats, and therefore that very many artists will have recorded works in 2016, released in 2017, that reflect disaffection. Music can be an escape from existentially floating around in the brown stuff, or it can be a way of dealing with it, rising above the crud. This album definitely confronts rather than escapes. Its lyrical deliberations on modern life are simple but heartfelt. The words are earnest, gently humane and calmly disapproving, without really being the album's strongest suit either. The musical decision to slow the songs down a little and introduce more of a bass/drums funky groove to their sound also means that there's less of the trademark velocity that characterised their biggest albums so far, "A Certain Trigger" and "Our Earthly Pleasures".

Stand-out tracks are scarce. "Risk To Exist" is classic Maximo Park and evokes the essence of the migrant crisis with impassioned, surging appeals from those who risk their lives for liberty - 'Put your arms around me,/ I've come too far and the ocean's deep./ Show some empathy.' "What Did We Do To You To Deserve This?" gives us a late 70s/early 80s Nile Rodgers guitar groove. Inspired by the banking crisis, it broadens out the attack on greed and mendacity with, 'You forgot to tell the truth, now it's too far away.' Paul Smith's call for unity and tolerance, "The Reason I am Here" encourages us with the lines 'Let's seize the day;/ don't generate antipathy obsessing over history.'

Continue reading: Maximo Park - Risk to Exist Album Review

'The National Health" finds Maximo Park playing to their strengths. It's the band's fourth studio album and, whilst they are hardly breaking new ground, either on their own sonic turf, or anyone else's, they appear to have expertly distilled the essence of Maximo Park and managed to filter it neatly into 13 fairly solid tracks, to make up their latest long player.

Continue reading: Maximo Park, The National Health Album Review

Maximo Park
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Single Review

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