Maximo Park  - Our Earthly Pleasures

Maximo Park gave us ‘Our Earthly Pleasures’ on April 2 to such hype in the UK. But then again, everything is hyped in the UK. Franz Ferdinand’s second album, anyone? Ba-bow. Bloc party. Meh. Our Earthly Pleasures reached these shores with barely a whimper. Maybe Silverchair and Powderfinger had a little to do with that and that’s okay. Oi oi oi, as it were.

So without hype I spend a weekend with Maximo. I hadn’t planned on playing the album as much as I did, but that’s the charm of this album. It opens with two great upbeat tracks dripping in Geordie Charm and intrigue. Accents and riffs vie for your attention, with lines like ‘you’ve lived your life with your mouth wide open’ finally taking hold.

Our Velocity could be ferocious. Every live performance I’ve seen of this track blows away the album version, which is a shame. I can’t help thinking that Gil Norton’s production has polished a little too much of the ferocity away. ‘Books from boxes’ , below, is at this moment in time my album jjjem.  But I know that by the end of next week it will be ‘Nosebleed’.

Paul Smith’s vocals are so distinct that even Mark Ronson used Smith on a reworking  of ‘Apply some pressure’, a maximo song, taken from the 2005 album ‘A certain Trigger’. Maybe it’s my penchant for Northern post-wave with intelligent lyrics (Yeah, like you don’t) but I think that Maximo have provided all you Northern Hemisphere folks a perfect soundtrack for your summer.

THINK: A Geordie Snowpatrol before they wrote for m.o.t.r.
READ: Maximo Park’s Homepage or myspace
WATCH: Books from Boxes clip
BUY: Our Earthly Pleasures from AllofMP3