03.
Maxïmo Park

Our Earthly Pleasures

2007 saw Maxïmo Park take the mantle of ‘best indie band going’ away from an underperforming Bloc Party. This follow up to the already rather excellent A Certain Trigger sees them coming on leaps and bounds, and standing head and shoulders above the pack. The premise is fairly simple: quick paced guitar-based songs punctuated with occasional reflective piano and some interesting synth work. Yet that description doesn’t do this excellent piece of work any justice at all. Every track here fizzes with intent, and the quality of the song writing is extremely high. ‘Our Velocity’ is like plugging your brain into the future, whilst ‘Russian Literature’ pretends to be a change in pace for twenty seconds and then proceeds to build into a drum-lead rant. My favourite track, ‘Your Urge’, mixes a cheesy piano keychange with a storming chorus that reaches three different levels as it builds up to a thumping crescendo. Given the quality of their debut, I perhaps shouldn’t have been surprised by Our Earthly Pleasures, but I have to say, I wasn’t expecting anything nearly as good as this. For me, this has shifted Maxïmo Park into the big league. Brilliant stuff.