Eight albums into their career and Maximo Park continue to delight with their intelligent brand of indie pop. ‘Stream of Life’ finds the band trying to make sense of what life is and what things mean when you are in your 40s…
There’s that distinctive guitar sound on album opener ‘Your Own Worst Enemy’ that reassures you you’re in the company of a special band and that the next 40 minutes or so are going to be a joy to behold. This, despite Paul Smith’s dire warnings: ‘Here we go again, hide the end and let’s pretend’. Lead single ‘Favourite Songs’ follows with its dose of melodic nostalgia before the driving bass of ‘Dormant ‘til Explosion’ takes the album into a sound somewhere between new wave and The B-52s, complete with playful vocal interplay between Paul and guest singer Vanessa Briscoe Hay from Pylon.
The Cars and R.E.M. are both mentioned as major influences in the press release for this album. You can hear both – especially the latter – on ‘The End Can’t Be as Good as the Start’. This jangly song has some truly heart-warming lyrics – ‘it’s better to be close than to be apart’ – that continue through to ‘Armchair View’, a largely acoustic song that appears to talk about parenthood and a two-tier society: ‘The privileged few get to settle a score’. The title track is reminiscent of Blur’s ‘The Ballad of Darren’ with its insightful sadness: ‘The way I see you is not the way you see me’.
‘I Knew That You’d Say That’ has a punk rock feel and takes direct aim at a know-it-all – ‘Yes, I knew, yes, I knew, clever you… What’s it like to be blessed with such foresight?’ ‘No Such Thing as a Society’ closes the record with a defiance that celebrates the importance of supporting each other as we’re only here for a short time: ‘Complacency is not for me… There’s nothing worse than mediocrity’.
‘Stream of Life’ is a bold and bright collection of storytelling and songs you won’t want to miss out on.
