Maximo Park

Undistinguishable from other British Indie-Rock Maximo Park have come a long way since realising their first album’ A Certain Trigger’ in 2005 with more recent turmoil amongst the band members nearly breaking up as a band as a founding member and keyboardist Lukas Wooller emigrated to Australia!

The first thing one notices with the artwork from Maximo Park’s latest LP

“Ooh, girls in the band”, says someone in front of me as Maximo Park take to the stage. And so it is, with bass and keys/backing vocal slots both taken with female musicians, although over the next hour or so, if there was any winning over to be done, it's done with energy, aplomb and, frankly, brilliance.

Smith was at his best though, when given material to work with that carried a chip on the shoulder as well as a romantic notion in the heart

Look lads, still got it!'

The release of their seventh album Nature Always Wins earlier this year proved how they have pursued tweaks and adjustments to their sound rather than any wholesale changes, but it sounded fresh and galvanised, the work very much a band that knows their role and can execute it with precision and power.

You’ve all aged much better than me, complimented Maximo Park’s singer Paul Smith from the stage when his band’s breakneck set proved not quite brisk enough to beat the show’s sharp finishing time and they had to play the final song with the house lights up.