Singles

Maximo Park - Apply Some Pressure

Bill Cummings 24/10/2005

Rating: 4/5

Of the Brit art-rock hopefuls that have emerged in the last eighteen months, for me Maximo Park have the potential to be the best of the lot. “Apply Some Pressure” is a re-release but who cares? In the verses, the taught tight drum and bass rhythms and hooky, jagged, angular guitars cut out rough patterns in your head that are pounded into shape by Hammond keyboards before it all bleeds into a riot of arty colours and melodies. Then in the crescendo-rocking chorus there's an exciting gasping sense of desperation in Paul Smith's vocals: his words tied up in a straightjacket of sexual frustration and loss. (“What happens when you lose everything?/ You start again/ You start all over again!”)

Forget the silly fringes, Maximo Park are intelligent, literate, and vital, this single renders the likes of the Kaiser Chiefs and the recent singles by Franz Ferdinand pretty much redundant.