On the record: Maxïmo Park – Nature Always Wins
When A Certain Trigger, Maxïmo Park’s debut album, came out in 2005, the lead single became an anthem. Apply Some Pressure was a sharp, smart example of indie music. Maxïmo Park’s alternative music would inspire nights at university student unions across the country, sitting nicely alongside Mr Brightside or Last Night as a floor filler.
Sixteen years and six albums later, the band are now dads. Those same students who danced to the syncopated verses of Apply Some Pressure are now coping with the realisation that they are grown-ups with real responsibilities. They are no longer the same people with entry-level jobs and pay packets, they are now mortgage-wielding producers of children. With exciting pasts behind them, their present and futures are a mix of nappies, standing orders and debates on whether or not to risk putting an extension on the back of the house given the risk of a property crash.
Nature Always Wins deals with these anxieties. The lead single off the album, Baby, Sleep, is the best example of singer Paul Smith’s lyrics focussing on his parental responsibilities and the independent-mindedness of his child and its sleeping pattern. In their earlier work, Maxïmo Park’s music was at its most compelling. Apply Some Pressure dealt with the nervousness about a future relationship where Smith’s Newcastle howl captured the excitement and uncertainty. Now entering his forties, Smith’s lyrics are shorn of much of that uncertainty, choosing to instead focus on his grown-up responsibilities.
The album’s high point, Ardour, offers a view into Smith and his bandmates’ uncertainty, however. Featuring Penetration’s Pauline Murray, the track is a jangly number that would fit nicely on their debut. The song features an excellent chorus. He asks if he can still deliver jokes or has just become the punchline himself.
On I Don’t Know What I’m Doing, Smith sings passionately about the fact that he hasn’t changed – but that his routine has. Writing it down, it feels like mundane fare. But it’s Smith’s delivery which sells the sentiment. His candid yelps about the worries he has about passing on his frailties to his kids are compelling.
Of the bands that rose to prominence in the mid-2000s, Maxïmo Park might not have seemed like a candidate for still being relevant over fifteen years after their debut. But, by growing with their fans, they offer something lyrically that listeners can empathise with. The days of bouncing to indie tunes on a Tuesday night may be long gone, but the record’s earnestness in addressing this shift in responsibility is what makes it so sellable.