Quicken the Heart

I just couldn't be good and wait patiently for my preordered copy of the new Maximo Park album to arrive could I? It got leaked at the weekend and somehow found itself in my itunes. Rascal of an album that it is.
I kinda want to review it a bit as I cheekily listened early, but I'm not a wordy girl, in fact if I try to describe why I like the band so much I have to revert back to my old physicist ways and say that I just resonate on the Park frequency. So this will be a bit crap, unlike the album! I'm coming to the conclusion I love it more than Earthly Pleasures. It feels a bit more like A Certain Trigger, a bit fresher and happier despite actually some songs being rather sad like Calm. Perfect timing getting my first week with Quicken the Heart to coincide with such lovely sunny weather. Stick it on your ipod and go for a walk, or a train journey. It's ideal company.

I think I have to start with the aural foreplay of Let's Get Clinical, It's fantastically synthy and dirty, there's gin, sin and sexual analogies fuelling a Paul Smith crush. He calls it robo-funk-pop, I call it robo-fuck-pop and I like this genre.
You can download this song from this site, apparently it's legal.


Calm is lovely, got this fantastic hook of a melody which the song opens with. It will come to mean summer to me I'm sure. It makes your head go whimsy. You think it's happy at first, you gradually come to realise it's sad. It's not calm in a contented way, it's a depressed calm, a numb one. So even knowing this how does the tune feel uplifting still?

A Cloud of Mystery lyrically reminds me of Night I Lost My Head a little. That was about regretting being off your tits when you meet a girl you like. This is one about wishing you could always meet that girl keeping that enigmatic aura going. Before he starts farting in bed or something.

In Another World (You Would've Found Yourself By Now), this I suspect will be a great sung along at gigs one. The chorus and there are some great whoahs! I particularly like the line "all the other girls live their lives without self doubt" as I feel most of the time I'm the only one who worries about the things I do. Now the threat to "wipe that smile of your face" in this song has got me thinking about Clinical again....

Anyway on to The Penultimate Clinch, he's a bit more narked in this one "bee in my bonnet", more urgently moving along and occasionally he seems to soften and has that penultimate clinch. I love the bit (this is where lacking technical language off songs fails me) after it lightens up a tad you get a lovely bit of instrumental action. Is it a middle 8? I don't know but I like that bit (starts at 2.00 min).

I Haven't Seen Her In Ages, again lovely wistful head style song. You kind of wish you had angsty thoughts to go with Maximo Park. The verses are romantic recollections of splendid days together, then he hits you with the fantastic line "she ripped me to shreds" with no apparent mood change in the music. Lovely pop, lovely poetic lyrics. To be expected from these guys!

Overland, West Of Suez is a noisey, busy, even 60s in parts kind of song, so much so I've not yet really picked up on the lyrics much. In fact I have no idea what it's about. Needs more listening.

Questing, Not Coasting I already knew I loved. I saw it last year at the Forum


Watch Questing in Music  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

and then again at the recording of the Shockwaves Channel 4 Album Chart Show at Koko at couple of weeks ago. I was most chuffed when Paul spotted I knew the lyrics. I'm all about the chorus and the frozen stardust. I love to watch a storm.



Roller Disco Dreams could be about my hen night which I spent at Rollerworld (nearly 5 years ago now) but it's another fast paced song on a noisier level to reflect the pre-Nosebleed style quality to the story. Almost Cure music like in parts.

Finally Tanned (totally out of order here, itunes decided and I've ignored the 2 you've heard already), again not new to me.

Watch Tanned in Music  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
Another sexy offering, with some lovely riffs that suit their stage presence (in particular Paul's dancing) well. Lovely touch from Lukas at the end too.

Next month I get to see them play Brixton and I am just so excited!

I other news I've been mainly twittering, hoovering, finishing my breastfeeding peer supporter training and taking more pictures.
Another Magistrates gig and my very first (hopefully not last) photopass at Scala for Matt Berry's album gig.





Magistrates single Heartbreak is out on the 25th of May.

And yes I do only listen to music from M's.