Review- Maximo Park

A review of Maximo album 'Our Earthly Pleasures' in March, 2007:

It was Noel Gallagher that once said, “We’re not arrogant, we just believe we're the best band in the world.” The ever-meek Noel knew how to stroll along the thin line of knowing you were good, without giving people a feeling of agitation that would prevent them offering Oasis the satisfaction of recognition.

But where Oasis gained the right to love themselves by pioneering a new wave of sound and stamping a sizeable ‘F**k off’ sized imprint on 90’s culture, Maximo Park are still at the start of the journey that challenges every band- to strive and create something different.

So when ‘Park front man Paul Smith states, “I think we’ve excelled as a live band”, the right to decide whether or not they have should be owned by the fans. In this age of indie, a word such as ‘excelled’ has to be held back for bands that have already established somewhat of a legacy, which, in this age of indie, hasn’t been done by anyone.

Even the local accent gimmick that Maximo Park have tried to push forward in their new album Our Earthly Pleasures is taken from the Arctic Monkeys’ Sheffield sound. Their nods to local landmarks (By the Monument has to be homage to the Earl Grey memorial in the centre of Newcastle) are lost on the greater public, but they know how to play the ‘hometown’ card on their Geordie contemporaries.

Maximo Park cannot admit to be trailblazers in their art yet, and their new offering to our ears is only consolidating that fact. The band say that the sound comes from music greats as diverse as the Smashing Pumpkins, The Smiths, and that their stage presence can be likened to Iggy Pop. Their latest album is reminiscent of every pop/ indie album of the last five years (was that Kaiser Chiefs or Futureheads I just listened to?) in the fact that every pop/indie album for the last five years just hasn’t hit the mark of previous decades.
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Gone are the days of Urban Hymns and What’s The Story Morning Glory and replacing the era of the classic album ensemble are a long line of nearly-mades. The modern band seems to settle for an album that is ‘alright’, but when did the best musicians settle for ‘alright’, and then even worse proclaim themselves as excellent?

So Maximo Park follow up their first album A Certain Trigger (which inevitably sold hundreds of thousands, being a middle-of the-road record that offended no-one), with another album in the same ilk. In fact Our Earthly Pleasures hardly stands out from its predecessor.

In fairness, it is not an album that is hard on the ears. The tracks run seamlessly together in a way that you don’t need to wait for your favourite track. But that is the album’s fundamental problem. No song is strong enough to stand out, no riff will have you tapping your feet for a weekend, no chorus will have you humming over your Weetabix on Monday morning, no beat will have you nodding your head during your lunch on Wednesday. You hear the album, you discard it. It’s like a bus ticket. You use it, you forget it.