This, the debut album from rakish Northern English post-punks Maximo Park, is certainly not the sort of album you expect to find on acclaimed techno label Warp Records ? but a sitting spent with A Certain Trigger should neatly demonstrate why they couldn't say no. A hyper-tuneful indie-rock outfit in the vein of XTC, Gang of Four, and particularly modern peers The Futureheads, Maximo turn out the sort of breathless, keyboard-drenched art-pop numbers that neither forsake their Englishness ? frontman Paul Smith sings in his native accent, a broad Newcastle accent ? nor bow excessively to the past. The immediate hit is "Apply Some Pressure", an instantly catchy mini-masterpiece of tension and relief that appears to be stitched out of the hooks from about five other songs ? but hot on its heels come the likes of "Graffiti" and "Going Missing", which, while slow-burning, prove no less addictive in the long haul. And for all the smart assery on display, Maximo Park prove agreeably adept at pulling off the odd tender moment: see the sweet, chiming "The Coast Is Always Changing" ? a tale of love, loss and long-distant train journeys. --Louis Pattison
Maximo Park
A Certain Trigger
[Warp; 2005]
Rating: 8.4
There are two kinds of rock bands: Those who discovered the music first, and those who spent their allowance on leather and had nothing left for records. If Maximo Park fall into the latter category, they do a good job of hiding it. A Certain Trigger, the band's debut full-length, is rife with enough peripatetic song structures and lithe arpeggios to convince substance-questioning naysayers of the Newcastle quintet's musical smarts. But, to an extent, yes, they're bandwagon-riders, and latecomers at that. The New Wave revival has already dined out on the charts. That's why, working with the scraps of a restless trend-seeking audience, Maximo Park's recent success in their homeland is so surprising.
Rather than turning up pebbles for the next Big Thing or exploiting a quirk, Maximo Park hone in on the specifics of an umbrella genre. Like the Futureheads or Postcard, they play jaunty, precise power pop with punk's antipathies, exuding a tentative cool. Managing (mostly) without fashonista caginess and attendant snark, Maximo Park are an easy sell. Occasionally, there's the requisite sneer at an ex or a self-deprecating barb, but A Certain Trigger is seldom anything short of gentlemanly.
That civility translates to a sort of sneakiness. Maximo Park's muted dynamics, understated vocals, and starchy production stack up to a weak first impression. But over the course of a slow'n'steady courtship, the album develops character. The tug comes partly from deceptively complicated song structures. Maximo Park dispense with traditional verse/chorus/verse formatting while the melodies, insouciantly catchy, play dumb. Songs slide from verse to pre-chorus to chorus to bridge to post-bridge with little fanfare. You're lucky to get a repeat, but who needs one when the band whip out with one-time, eight-bar dalliances like the ecstatic, whirling bridge on upwardly mobile single "Graffiti"?
"Apply Some Pressure", the album's lead single, is typically roundabout. The song twists through some punchy, stiffly syncopated verses, each capped by a unison fill, before slipping into an extended bridge, driven by the type of harmony most bands would have been content to ride for an entire song. "Going Missing", with its propulsive beat and manic mood swings, is an overstuffed suitcase of post-breakup ambivalence: Lead singer Paul Smith is resilient while awake ("I'm going missing for awhile/ I've got nothing left to lose"), mournful in repose ("I sleep with my hands across my chest/ And I dream of you with someone else"). Aforementioned "Graffiti", which features a wiry, Voidoids-style non-groove, is aberrantly loose-limbed, but the architecture is anything but perfunctory, sprouting little detours at every intersection.
The band's lack of swagger is refreshing amid the hot fussed-over convicts and misogynistic sun kings of the New Wave sphere, but it also hampers the less convincing tracks (i.e., "Once a Glimpse" and "The Coast Is Always Changing"). There's also the question of why Maximo Park, a pop band, are on Warp, home to electronic visionaries Squarepusher and Autechre. The only reason I can think of is "Acrobat", an amazingly tender, drone-seeped song that harkens back to shoegaze and Velvet Underground while embracing modern gadgetry. It's Maximo Park's "Maps", a song at once exemplary of and antithetical to its brethren.
Don't take the comparisons as caveats. Maximo Park don't use their forebears as stepping stones out of creative desperation; it's a mark of their business savvy. Even if you know what's hot, you still have to make it pop, and nearly every song on A Certain Trigger succeeds. Maximo Park leave their grubby prints on each track, be it the teeth-grinding squall riding atop "Signal & Sign"'s second verse or the synths and organs lurking merrily underneath every song like a loner kid who snuck in to the dance party.
-Sam Ubl, May 17, 2005
Review by Heather Phares
While Maximo Park might be relative latecomers to the post-punk/new wave revival, their debut album, A Certain Trigger, stakes out their own distinctive territory within that sound. Sonically speaking, the Newcastle band's mix of wiry guitars, sharply punctuated rhythms, and atmospheric keyboards is nothing new, even when compared to their fellow revivalists. What makes Maximo Park, and A Certain Trigger, special is the way the band captures the joys and frustrations of being young and cooped up in a small town -- they're bittersweet, angry, thoughtful, and funny, often within the course of the same song. Singer/lyricist Paul Smith's witty, occasionally poignant observations, coupled with his strong (and endearing) Geordie accent, add to the band's earnest, angry-young-man appeal. Indeed, Maximo Park are so good at writing anthems for love-lorn underdogs that they almost feel more akin, spiritually at least, to Pulp than to some of their contemporaries. Similarly, some of Smith's more quotable lyrics, such as "Postcard of a Painting"'s "I wrote my feelings down in a rush/I didn't even check the spelling," recall those other Smiths, and the song's jaunty melancholy is more than a little reminiscent of "This Charming Man." Several of A Certain Trigger's best songs were already released as singles, but when the songs are this good, it's hard to complain that they sound familiar. "Apply Some Pressure" is just as addictive and smart within the album's context as it was on its own; as it begins with spiky guitars and turns itself inside out with a synth-driven middle section, Smith hopes to get caught stealing and wonders if he'll even be alive next year, but boils it down to what's most important by the end of the song ("I hope that I will live to see you undress"). The boldly romantic "Graffiti" is very nearly as good, while "The Coast Is Changing" is sweet and soaring -- even the slightly cringe-inducing couplet "I am young and I am lost/You react to my riposte" underscores its heartfelt, if somewhat awkward, exuberance. Most of A Certain Trigger's album tracks sound like singles waiting to be discovered -- like their friends the Futureheads, a big part of Maximo Park's appeal is hearing them pack so many musical and lyrical ideas into songs that rarely pass the three-and-a-half-minute mark, like the wonderfully agile "Now I'm All Over the Shop" and "Kiss You Better." On the other hand, "Acrobat," a bittersweet, largely spoken word ballad propelled by chilly drum machines and synths, is a standout because it's so expansive and languid. Now that some of the novelty of Warp signing a post-punk-inspired band has worn off, it's easier to hear why they did: A Certain Trigger is a remarkably fresh-sounding debut album, with more than enough personality to transcend its retro leanings.
|
