Maximo Park - Our Earthly Pleasures
Related Artist:
Maximo Park
Release Date: 02/04/07
Label: Warp
Rating: 5/10
Ah, the difficult second album. How to produce the youthful vigour and ambition of the first, when your vigour is at an all-time low after a hectic schedule and your ambitions are halfway realised? The record company will be applying some pressure, and onwards and upwards is the expectation. It's easy to see why so many get it wrong, and in many of the ways that Maximo Park demonstrate on this, their second genuine long player.
Problem one, and inescapable from start to finish, is a blandly slick production job, with opener 'Girls Who Play Guitars' in particular seeming to have had its spirit amputated. Is this really Gil Norton, producer of some of Pixies' greatest work? There's a certain amount to be said for hewing away the rough edges, but this is pretty ridiculous. Unless this is actually how the band meant it to sound...
Lead single 'Our Velocity' brings the noise early on, but flies in the face of conventional writing by actually getting quieter during the chorus sections - if that was intentional, then kudos to them for a subtle twist. An attempt at an anthem on 'Karaoke Plays' is pretty functional, but then nothing every really gets as high as spectacular on this disc, and once closing track 'Parisian Skies' just sort of peters out, you’ll wonder why you bothered.
The slower numbers sound as if Editors were sent to a focus group, and asked why they couldn’t be a bit more like those nice Coldplay boys. The faster tracks don't have a shadow of a chance, thanks to the castrated production and a simple lack of bombast. Still, this is a marketable prospect, and the indie hordes will doubtlessly lap it up, but anyone who finds this soundtracking their teenage years will have every right to feel short changed.
Garreth F. Hirons
Maximo Park Official Site
Maximo Park Myspace
Buy Maximo Park CDs | Buy Maximo Park mp3s | Buy Maximo Park Tickets | Buy Maximo Park Merch
Release Date: 02/04/07
Label: Warp
Rating: 5/10
Ah, the difficult second album. How to produce the youthful vigour and ambition of the first, when your vigour is at an all-time low after a hectic schedule and your ambitions are halfway realised? The record company will be applying some pressure, and onwards and upwards is the expectation. It's easy to see why so many get it wrong, and in many of the ways that Maximo Park demonstrate on this, their second genuine long player.
Problem one, and inescapable from start to finish, is a blandly slick production job, with opener 'Girls Who Play Guitars' in particular seeming to have had its spirit amputated. Is this really Gil Norton, producer of some of Pixies' greatest work? There's a certain amount to be said for hewing away the rough edges, but this is pretty ridiculous. Unless this is actually how the band meant it to sound...
Lead single 'Our Velocity' brings the noise early on, but flies in the face of conventional writing by actually getting quieter during the chorus sections - if that was intentional, then kudos to them for a subtle twist. An attempt at an anthem on 'Karaoke Plays' is pretty functional, but then nothing every really gets as high as spectacular on this disc, and once closing track 'Parisian Skies' just sort of peters out, you’ll wonder why you bothered.
The slower numbers sound as if Editors were sent to a focus group, and asked why they couldn’t be a bit more like those nice Coldplay boys. The faster tracks don't have a shadow of a chance, thanks to the castrated production and a simple lack of bombast. Still, this is a marketable prospect, and the indie hordes will doubtlessly lap it up, but anyone who finds this soundtracking their teenage years will have every right to feel short changed.
Garreth F. Hirons
Maximo Park Official Site
Maximo Park Myspace
Buy Maximo Park CDs | Buy Maximo Park mp3s | Buy Maximo Park Tickets | Buy Maximo Park Merch
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