What Fuels Me
Posted on | November 22, 2005 at 5:37 pm | 4 Comments
I just can’t get enough of this Maximo Park – A Certain Trigger CD. See my previous entry about it – I was right about it being a “grower”. I thought for sure that Twin Cinema would be my favorite album of the year, but this one has slowly overtaken it. Yeah, its highs are not as euphoric as the best songs on TC, but it’s more consistently entertaining. Not a bad or dull song in the lot among the thirteen tunes. I know this must be a classic album, since I can’t pick out a favorite song. As each song ends, I start to think I should rewind and play it again, but then the next song kicks in and I remember how good that one is too. It’s like an entire album of hit singles. The same paradigm applies within each song. Initially when one of the songs starts up, I think Wow, that’s a really catchy verse and then the even catchier bridge kicks in and I think Hey, that’s even better and then finally the chorus hits and I’ve lost it, grinning and singing along like an idiot.
I think it helps that the songs rush in, do their business, and get out without overstaying their welcome. All the songs but one are under four minutes and many are under three. The longest song is “Acrobat”, which comes closest to losing me. It’s 4:42 and I’m sure the length is not coincidental to my placement of it at the bottom of the list. It’s a languid, mostly spoken-word piece, but at least it has a melodic chorus and an interesting musical arrangement. And it’s immediately followed by the anthemic bittersweet album-closer “Kiss You Better” – the juxtaposition between the two is just the right note to end the album on. The art of track positioning is not a lost one.
The only thing I can think of to describe the genre this group belongs to is “angular uptempo BritPop”. Some reviews I’ve read compare them to Wire, and even more improbably to The Fall, neither of which I really hear much of. There are loads of guitars, including power chords, but also analog synths intruding in and making seemingly out of place noises at odd times. I even hear some echoes of Prog Rock from time to time, like in the intro to “The Coast Is Always Changing”, and there’s the occasional shift in time signatures at unexpected moments. (Note to my fellow Scott Miller/Loud Family fans: The beginning of “Going Missing” reminds me strongly of “Aerodeliria”, and then when the synths kick in you could swear it’s an old Game Theory song until the British vocals start.) The single-minded lyrics, mostly of the self-obsessively gloomy “love lost” variety would seem to be at odds with the uptempo music, but it all works. “I am young and I am lost/every sentence has its cost”.
The edition of the CD I received came with a bonus disc with seven of the tracks performed live. No big revelations there, as the live versions sound pretty close to the studio ones. But still nice to have anyway.
This is the longest music review I’ve done in awhile. Take that to mean I really love this and that everyone else should too. Buy it!
Latre.
Comments
4 Responses to “What Fuels Me”
November 24th, 2005 @ 9:20 am
I listened to this disc a few times at work yesterday after I read your post, great stuff. Standout cut for me so far is Acrobat, which starts out reminding me a little of Peter Gabriel’s Biko, and ends up reminding me of Ultravox’s Vienna.
November 24th, 2005 @ 9:43 am
Glad you liked it! Ultravox (the slower, moodier songs at least) is a very good reference point for that song (though I’m not it applies to the rest of the album). Come to think of it, the vocalist does sound a bit like Midge Ure at times, though maybe that’s just in his phrasing.
December 2nd, 2005 @ 9:28 pm
Since your last recommendations (The Features, and I believe Engineers) worked out pretty well for me, I picked this one up this afternoon. So far, pretty fine (I’m on track 7).
December 2nd, 2005 @ 10:25 pm
Excellent. Although it was Miles was suggested The Features to both of us, and I’ve never heard of Engineers. Well, I’m an engineer, but I don’t think that’s what you mean.