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Album Review
by SashaS
31-5-2005
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| Maximo Park: 'A Certain Trigger' of cool |
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Maximo Park: 'A Certain Trigger'
(Warp)
Maximo Park: an essential debut
Ever since Franz Ferdinand last year, it is has been a vintage year for debut albums and the intervening months should be marked on history‘s pages as period of classic openers: The Futureheads, Kaiser Chiefs, The Editors, (forthcoming) Sons & Daughters’… But, one of the best - this year and so far - is Maximo Park’s ‘A Certain Trigger’.
Inspired by the 1980s, very early period of it, the time when New Wave was about to run out of steam, they’ve created an album that sounds the most rounded of the contemporary lot. It borders on art-pop but it certainly gets deeper. The singer/lyricist, Paul Smith‘s gift is to write about everydayness with real elegance, insight and fun and an astuteness not heard since Jarvis Cocker’s glory days with Pulp.
The Newcastle group have created a guitar-driven collection of spiky-cum-joyous chiming tunes to compliment a new morning. In the mix are echoes of Wah! Heat [‘Graffiti’, first of their two singles, backed by ‘Going Missing’, also included on the LP], Magazine [‘Apply Some Preasure’], even Talking Heads [on funky-tastic ‘I Want You To Stay’], alongside punky and indie roots.
Nevertheless, Maximo Park are far from being just about myriad influences that merely inform their songs but are a quintet with an adventurous spirit they bring to the mixing desk. Opening with ‘Signal And Sign’, its sound is decorated with an organ that can’t fail but remind of The Stranglers, a notion usurped by a guitar noise that could have come from Gang of Four’s Andy Gill handling frets and an upbeat-ness that far outstrips Blur’s attempts to emulate The Kinks.
Smith is backed by Duncan Lloyd (guitar), Lukas Wooller (keyboards), Archis Tiku (bass) and Tom English (drums) for a masterful display of songsmithery and playmanship. On par with Ray Davies and nearing Ian Dury’s sacred ground, ‘A Certain Trigger’ shirks from neither veterans’ legacy nor the neo-legends such as Robert Smith [no relation?] of The Cure.
It is also appropriate they are the first signing to the world’s foremost electronic label, Warp, because Maximo Park are not just any one-thing. The vocabulary these boys easily deploy is multifaceted and spreads from Joy Division-cum-Tindersticks-like ‘downer’ in ‘Acrobat’ to the pure pop jolliness of ‘The Night I Lost My Head’ and ‘Kiss You Better’, the album‘s closer.
Oasis, also releasing the new album this week, should listen to the new crop of bands rather than dissing them in various interviews. The Gallagher bros’ outfit can learn how to hinder sounding so f**king passé!
Maximo Park, with their neophyte brethren, will have a lot to live up to come the sophomore discs. But, thus far - it is a rousing antidote to bland preconceptions and fabrications of today’s mainstreaming bollocks.
8.3/10
SashaS
31-5-2005
Maximo Park’s album ‘A Certain Trigger’ is available now on Warp
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