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 maximo park session
 to access audio and video on collective you need real player.Nervy smart pop from Newcastle. It’s not where you’re from, as the cliché has it, but where you’re at. For two young British bands, though, there’s at least something in geography - widespread surprise that the north-east of England has recently produced not one but two cracking guitar-pop bands can only be explained by the fact that it’s only recently that singers have found the confidence to express themselves in their regional accents. Paul Smith, singer with fast-rising Newcastle five-piece Maximo Park, simply can’t imagine singing in anything other than his natural Geordie voice. “There’s no way I could function as a singer,” he explains. “Because it just wouldn’t be true. It’s not that it’s an authentic badge of honour to sing with an accent, it’s just utterly natural, and to change would jar. People would understand that it wasn’t real.” Of course, it’s not Maximo Park’s embracing of their provincial roots that’s made them a hit, no more than it has Sunderland’s Futureheads – touring mates with whom they’re often compared. It’s the combined nervy guitar work, Smith’s swooping vocals and the unapologetic realism of his lyrics which push the smart pop button. Debut album, A Certain Trigger, actually sets them almost as far apart from The Futureheads as Newcastle is from Neptune. “If people say we sound like The Futureheads,” Smith sighs, “then they’re obviously just attaching themselves to the accent. People are always going to compare you with someone else, but we have a confidence that our music does have its own identity.”  No worries on that count. Maximo Park’s edgy sound embraces a slight archness and theatricality that recalls The Smiths and Pet Shop Boys, and there aren’t too many pop singers these days who’d rhyme “lost” with “riposte”. “I don’t think it’s wrong or pretentious to embrace a more literary edge,” declares Smith, who was an art teacher before this pop lark took over. “I think that life encompasses more things than fit into one, streamlined view and it’s very easy to become an artist who plays by the rules. “Our music combines extremely simple elements – we write pop songs, not punk or prog rock – and ultimately, these are songs that people can access. But there’d be no point in us releasing songs if they weren’t different from what’s come before. We’re not playing free jazz, but I think we do push the formula a bit each time. If we didn’t, there would be no point to us.”
Sharon O’Connell
Maximo Park – A Certain Trigger, out now on Warp.
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see also
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