Music / Maxïmo Park

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Maxïmo Park are a British indie band, from the North East of England. Heavily influenced by the post-punk/New Wave revival of the early 21st Century, they signed to the label Warp Records in the 2000s - also known for releasing songs by famous artists such as Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Battles, !!! and Autechre. They are often compared to The Futureheads and Editors. They have released five studio albums so far - A Certain Trigger, Our Earthly Pleasures, Quicken The Heart, The National Health and Too Much Information. In addition, they have also released a B-Sides compilation titled Missing Songs and a DVD titled Found On Film. Their most popular song is "Our Velocity" from Our Earthly Pleasures, which has also been featured in many media works, more emblematically appearing in the official soundtrack of Project Gotham Racing 4.

They were formed in 2000, and consist of Paul Smith (vocals), Duncan Lloyd (guitar), Archis Tiku (Bass), Tom English (Drums) and Lukas Wooler (keyboards).

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Discography:

• A Certain Trigger (2005)
• Our Earthly Pleasures (2007)
• Quicken the Heart (2009)
• The National Health (2012)
• Too Much Information (2014)
• Risk to Exist (2017)
• Nature Always Wins (2021)
• Stream of Life (2024)

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Never, never try to gauge temperature when you tend to trope at such speed, it's our velocity:

• Animated Credits Opening: Mild, rather un-wacky example at the beginning of the music video to ''The National Health''.
• Deliberately Monochrome: The cover of Our Earthly Pleasures is monochrome.
• Fake-Out Fade-Out: "The Unshockable", with bonus abrupt song ending.
• Good with Numbers: Cf. "A Fortnight's Time": "Five times five equals twenty-five..." (It's just pop music - did you expect differential equations?)
• Heävy Mëtal Ümlaut: There is one over the "i", but it doesn't affect pronunciation
• Idiosyncratic Album Naming: Four of five studio albums and the DVD are named after snippets of lyrics from one of the songs within, which form Album Title Drops. ^note (Note that for added confusion, the snippets are usually not the song titles - "Quicken the Heart" comes from "Wraithlike" etc.)
• Mustache Vandalism: Possibly in the lyrics to "Standing by the Monument": "Defacing pictures of famous people on the train..." (That's all we know.)
• New Sound Album: Too Much Information. Still Maximo Park, but clearly different.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: "Did you hear (Say what?) - I've been down to the council today (What did they say?) - they sent me away (No way!) - My word holds no sway (Who's to blame?) - He wore a badge with a name (Oh yeah?) - I guess I couldn't be tamed" ("The National Health"). Also qualifies for Crapsack World.
• Self-Backing Vocalist: Paul provides most of, if not all, the backing vocals for the band.
• Suddenly Shouting: At the start of "Our Velocity".
  I buy books I never read
  And then I tell you some more about... ME!
• Surreal Music Video: The official music video for ''Our Velocity'' merges this with Performance Video.

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I like to wait to see how things turn out
If you apply some pressure
I like to wait to see how things turn out
If you apply some pressureWhat happens when you lose everything?
You just start again, you start all over again
What happens when you lose everything?
You just start again, you start all over again