Maxïmo Park - A Certain Trigger. Review.

I‘ve had the lucky opportunity to having been able to listen to a lot of new music albums over the past year. This was due to two primary reasons: (a) I have to ride 2 hours by train each time I‘m heading for work, which results in lots of free time where I can listen to music. (b) While I‘ve previously owned several iPods, I never really carried them with me all the time. There were often situations where I‘d forgot the iPod or not expected to need it. Not so with my iPhone. I always have it on, thus resulting in a boosted music experience.

As a consequence of this, I could listen to a lot of interesting and new music during the past months. And I‘d like to write short reviews for those which really really impressed me. Beginning with ‚Maxïmo Park‘ - ‚A Certain Trigger‘.

I‘m not your typical guitar rock buff. I like it, if music a pure distorted guitar gives the track a „rough“ feeling, and I do have a lot of favorites which can clearly be considered rocking. However I wouldn‘t select music this way. Instead I‘m rather opt for splendid melodies, interesting changes, valuable lyrics. Music has to surprise me, and most doesn‘t. Most music just implements well-known pop / rock music structures, feels repetetive or downright boring. That‘s why ‚A Certain Trigger‘ was such a welcome exception.

Clearly building upon the shoulders of giants, Maxïmo Park manage to create a finegrained mix of different musical elements while clearly centering around the core value of rough guitars - much like in the early punk days, just enhanced and elaborate.

Instruments alone don‘t make good tracks though, and here‘s where Maxïmo Park really shine: Fantastic multilayered melodies, where sometimes even four varying alternations define the structure of a track, sudden breaks, tempo changes and more. In addition to that, the band employs a marvellous piano which adds an important note to each track as it enhances the melodies in many ways. While this description sounds highly experimental, the end result just somehow isn‘t. Maxïmo Park manage to write fresh and diverse tracks which don‘t sound experimental but as one solid piece of sound history instead. 

I love this album, the tracks are highly emotional, the lyrics tend to be easily adoptable to one‘s own problems. My iTunes says that I listened to it 37 times by now. Those interested in fresh guitar rock should not wait but try this album. It‘s hard to recommend specific tracks as almost all of them are jewels. „Postcard of a painting“, „The Coast is always changing“ and „Apply Some Pressure“ can be considered my favourites though.