Maxïmo Park
Too Much Information
(Daylighting)
⋆⋆⋆
Bookish indie-rockers from the north-east of England, Maxïmo Park have always been easy to like, but difficult to love. Their literate guitar-pop has some of the bristly charm of Pulp or Arctic Monkeys but with less charisma, originality or wit. This polished and mature-sounding fifth album was produced by the band with help from their avant-folk neighbours Field Music and Dave Okumu of the experimental jazz trio The Invisible. In terms of arrangements and sounds, Too Much Information is their most electronic and sophisticated work to date, most notably on the sumptuous techno-noir ballad Brain Cells and the skeletal synth-pop number Is It True? Another highlight is Her Name Was Audre, a lively punk-pop gallop inspired by the American writer and activist Audre Lorde. At heart, however, Too Much Information sits firmly within the band's just-above-average indie-rock comfort zone. My Bloody Mind is the kind of bouncy but forgettable racket that Kaiser Chiefs have made their own, while Lydia, the Ink Will Never Dry belies its promisingly Morrissey-ish title with generic guitar-bashing. Overall, this is a sporadically impressive but inessential addition to the Maxïmo Park canon.
[ artslife@thenational.ae ]
