Their first album was so stylised that it was always going to be a nightmare to follow up, but at least Maximo Park had The Futureheads’ mistakes to learn from.
Rather than go further off on that tangent of uniqueness, Maximo take a confident step backwards. On ‘A Certain Trigger’, they were nobody else but Maximo Park; on ‘Our Earthly Pleasures’, they’re a little bit Pixies, a little bit The Cure, a little bit The Smiths (in more than Paul Smith’s Morrissey-esque lyrical habits)… their influences are showing, and it’s working beautifully.
It sounds more natural, more organic, but still quirky and unmistakably Maximo. It really is like they’ve pulled that old trick where volunteers for an unfortunate and deadly mission are asked to take a step forward, and you take a step back.
The album’s assault may have been led by ‘Our Velocity’ and its terrific tempo-changes – a song that sounded like ‘Apply Some Pressure’ cranked up a few notches – but it seems representative of a smaller portion of tracks on this album that similarly sound like old Maximo but louder. These tracks might be the first to stand out – ‘Girls Who Play Guitar’, ‘Books From Boxes’, ‘A Fortnight’s Time’ – but it’s the ones in between that make this a good album, rather than just an album by a good band.