Post-It: Maximo Park – Wraithlike

Maximo Park- Wraithlike (Link 2)

noun [reyth]
1. An apparition of a living person that appears as a portent just before that person’s death.
2. The ghost of a dead person.
3. Something shadowy and insubstantial.

Earlier this week, the first cut from Maximo Park’s new album “Quicken the Heart” was released (via their website), and I’m afraid to say that it didn’t impress. The Park have always been a brilliant band: complex, poppy and literate in a distinctly unfashionable way that mocks the brainless lad rock that dominates so much of English music right now. So why does this track, which is also the album opener, feel like a disappointment?
“Wraithlike” is apt – this is so short that it ghosts past without ever really grabbing you or taking those hairpin melodic U-turns that typify the band at their spitting, twisting best. What is supposed to be the chorus (I think) reveals a killer lyric from Paul Smith, “Cut me to sights and sounds/she left lying around on the floor/ she said I’d forget her voice, that’s untrue/it’s just not as sharp as before”, but in this case it’s not quite enough to salvage it.

Maximo Park have always been a band that you desperately want to root for: I’m holding out hope that this is just an intriguing taster of a wonderful debut album, as the band are still to announce what the first single proper will be. If it’s slice of jerky indie with an uppercut of a chorus then all will be forgiven. I will leave the last words on this offering to the frontman himself – it’s as if he took the lyrics right out of my mouth: “It’s just not as real as before”.
What happens when you lose everything? You just start again. Over to you boys.

2 Responses to “Post-It: Maximo Park – Wraithlike”

1. Post It Up: March Madness « JayeL Audio Music says:

   March 13, 2009 at 4:24 am

   [...] to PMA, The Cold Cut, Mixtape Maestro, First Up! and Eat this City for the new [...]
2. Stefan Martenss says:

   March 14, 2009 at 4:51 am

   Check out my blog post about Maximo’s new single, album and how the leverage the power of social Media: http://snipurl.com/dsi37 – I just love ‘em!