There will be no discussion whatsoever of the hidden depths of Maximo Park’s music here, because frankly, Song, by Toad doesn’t give a fig for such pretension. This is a superficial, thoughtless blog full of ill-thought out piffle and proud of it, so there’s no room for philosophical or artistic pontificating. Or at least not in this post.

Maximo Park could write some of the most profound and moving lyrics in modern music, and they could create some of the most sophisticated layered harmonies since fucking Beethoven, but honestly I would find it impossible to notice – my mind just won’t go there with their music.

For Toad, Maximo Park are simply one of the premiere indie-pop bands going, no more and no less. Their music is about as catchy as I’ve heard for years, and this is not a figure of speech it is a literal statement. For this reason I did them the disservice of assuming that they would vanish after the perfectly packaged pop genius of A Certain Trigger, but no, they’re back and still bang on the money. I am not entirely convinced that Our Earthly Pleasures is as consistent as their debut, but I really don’t care. The rest of the songs may yet grow on me and they may not, but when you have managed such irresistible pop genius as Girls Who Play Guitars, Nosebleed, Our Velocity and The Unshockable it really doesn’t matter.

Maximo Park – Girls Who Play Guitars
Maximo Park – The Unshockable