Maximo Park - Quicken The Heart - 2/5

So, this is the third album.
I was worried that Maximo's second long-player "Our Earthly Pleasures" would be a let down after hearing the attempts by Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party and co. However, the Newcastle quintet managed to refine their sound into an even more powerful emotive beast. The singles were well chosen. The production didn't go over the top. The songwriting just as good as that of "A Certain Trigger", if not better.

However, upon the announcement of "Quicken The Heart" and the release of the album's opener, "Wraithlike", I suddenly realise that in the third album they'd hit that wall. Suspicions were confirmed with "The Kids Are Sick Again" (swine flu?), their latest single. Now, with the album's exclusive release on MySpace, I'm deeply saddened. Seriously. This is the sound of a good band gone tits up.

The music sounds over-complicated. Taking the two aforementioned tracks "Wraithlike" and "The Kids...", the band convey the image of having cut a good demo, then believing that the tracks need complication. Both tracks cut through different time signatures without any need. Maximo seem as though they're trying to be too clever. "Let's Get Clincal" breaks down into darker-than-dark synth drones reminiscent of Bill Bailey's Magic Roundabout,

What annoys me the most with the new material is the lyrics. Paul Smith sounds as though he's been rushed - another Morrissey having lost his irony and wit - after the band spent too much time deciding whether to use 5/4 or 7/8. Some lines are even laughable due to the plague of rhyming-dictionary-style composition - "Her mother let me stay after the disco left us deaf" ("Tanned"); "Nor will I ever despite this weather" ("Questing Not Coasting"); "You got a new bike, all I got was the picture" ("I Haven't Seen Her In Ages"); "Bare ankles used to mean adventure" ("Let's Get Clinical").

However, the rest of the album isn't as bad. It's still weak and doesn't come anywhere near the punch of "A Certain Trigger", but the musicianship is still there. Wooller's keyboards seem to appear more often, supporting the band's sound. They may seem overused to some, but the choice of a few different sounds to the usual Maximo synth lines add some refreshing tones to the tracks. There even seems to be the "blatent Casio" preset in "I Haven't Seen Her In Ages". Tom English's drums are still as tight as they could possibly be. Lloyd and Tiku's guitar interplay is just as good as on past albums, with each musician setting a base for the other to work on.

To summarise, "Quicken The Heart" sounds like the Smiths gone wrong. As said before, Paul Smith's (seriously, that surname) lyrics do seem like a Morrissey tribute act trying to write his own songs, while previous attempts managed to capture emotion and wit. While Smith bores the listener with you've-got-to-be-joking rhyme, the band try to make up for the frontman with bizarre time shifts that just make everything worse. After such a review, you may be surprised to hear that I'm still seeing them live. Well, it is a festival, and they are headlining. Mind, with the new album in mind, I'll only be going for the first two LP's worth of tracks.