When bands like These Animal Men and Elastica showed up in the mid-Nineties in the U.K., there was, within the larger Britpop umbrella, a genre known as New Wave of New Wave. Thrown at bands who owed clear debts to the first wave of New Wave acts from the Seventies, that label applied to bands who favored an economic sound. About a decade after that, Maximo Park showed up. Lumped in with acts like Kaiser Chiefs and Editors, Maximo Park had their own distinctive sound, centered around vocalist Paul Smith. Now, here in 2024, the band's back with a new record.
Stream of Life is a fairly engaging release, one which finds Smith and co. marrying sleek keyboards with sharp, angular guitar hooks. "Your Own Worst Enemy" sounds like peak Maximo Park from 15 years ago or so, while "I Knew That You'd Say" is a clanging missive built around Smith's impassioned vocal yearnings. Elsewhere, the title cut takes things down a bit, the urgency here replaced with emotive melodic twists and turns, even as "Armchair View", a real highlight here, shines thanks to an understated elegance. It is, like the better numbers here, precise in its construction, and every bit as sharply rendered as the compositions on the first few Maximo Park albums.
There's enough here on Stream of Life to please long-term Maximo Park fans, and some surprisingly lovely pieces of music. So much of this works thanks to Paul Smith's unique vocals, and the record's peaks and valleys are explored with that instrument in the lead. The journey is a good one, I'm happy to report.
Stream of Life by Maximo Park is out now.
[Photo: Moja]