Review of Maximo Park's CD "A Certain Trigger"

Maximo Park: A Certain Trigger

Frantic, frenzied, funny, fucked-up, finely-tuned and most of all FANTASTIC! That's just a short alliteration of what sums up this absolute diamond of a CD from Maximo Park. After reviewing their single "Graffiti" I couldn't wait to get my hands on this album.

On pressing play on my CD player I was thrown into silence, then the slowly increasing dynamic of a drum beat, the guitars scrape in and off we go on this jet-journey of an album. I must admit there are a couple of tracks can be passed, but equally there are certain gems on the CD like the recent single "Graffiti" and the Jam-esque flavours of "I want You To Stay" and "Kiss You Better".

With its overall 60's, 70's mod-esque vibe it definitely makes a change to a lot of pretentious indie pap that is being thrown about the place. I'm torn between my favourites on the album, "Graffiti" and "Postcard of a Painting". The first single "Apply Some Pressure" goes down well, and echoes of Pulp stream through "Going Missing" very pleasantly.

I also like a lot of the production values, it's raw, undeniably dirty and grainy but it sounds fantastic, and I think this helped them bring their audience their unique sound and it's a great produced record.

This band are going to be huge, there's no doubt about it, I even remember after reviewing the "Graffiti" single, turning on my television and seeing the video to the single on a Sky music channel (I can't remember which one!) and being totally chuffed with them, so well done fellas, you've done deservedly well for yourselves, with this corker of an album.

For a band that has suddenly been launched from the backstreets of the north-east to nationwide rock 'n' roll stardom, they are recording some greatly enjoyable pop songs that take inspiration from their mod peers such as The Small Faces, The Jam and more recent Brit-Pop bands such as Pulp and The Smiths.

Now excuse me please, I'm going for another listen!

• www.maximopark.com

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