Park Warps The Heart

Maximo Park are set to release their third album, “Quicken The Heart,” on May 12th through Warp Records. The album was recorded and produced in LA by Nick Launay (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Nick Cave, Talking Heads).

For a band that has achieved so much, Maximo Park are constantly pushing ever onwards and upwards, darting off in new directions and exploring new dimensions of their sound, with this record being the latest proof. If they were reaching for the stars on previous records, here they are reaching for the heavens, building a skyscraping monument of dreamy synths, galvanizing rock and roll and buoyant pop. Deftly managing to avoid becoming a footnote in the encyclopedia of British bands, Maximo Park retain every ounce of their independence and serve up an album of ingenious hooks and memorable lyrics that search for romance in everyday life.

The album’s lead single “The Kids Are Sick Again” is a full-blooded, heart-swelling rallying cry against the stifling conformity and normalcy of modern society that will have grown men pumping fists into the air and kids rushing en masse to the dancefloor when its opening strains are heard the world over. “The Kids Are Sick Again” will be available on CD, 2 x 7” vinyl and as a digital download through Warp Records on May 5. Each version will come bundled with a different B-side.

“Wraithlike” gets the album off to a jolting start, with Paul Smith’s soaring vocals underpinned by a bedrock of grittier instrumentation (courtesy of guitarist Duncan Lloyd, bassist Archis Tiku, keyboardist Lukas Wooller and drummer Tom English, all in looser, more spontaneous form than before). From then on it is a fast and furious ride, the band locked into a sound that is at once more urgent, vigorous and yet more lush and accomplished than ever before. The simply gorgeous, densely layered “Roller Disco Dreams” lives up to its title quite spectacularly.

Quicken the Heart marks yet another high point for Maximo Park. Their first album, A Certain Trigger, was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize. Their second, Our Earthly Pleasures hit Number 2 in the UK charts. Tickets for the group’s 2009 UK Summer tour sold out in under an hour.

Quicken the Heart is an astounding step in the evolution for one of Britain’s best-loved bands, and a clear indication that Maximo Park stands poised to break out in America.

Track Listing:
1. Wraithlike
2. The Penultimate Clinch
3. The Kids Are Sick Again
4. A Cloud Of Mystery
5. Calm
6. In Another World (You Would’ve Found Yourself By Now)
7. Let’s Get Clinical
8. Roller Disco Dreams
9. Tanned
10. Questing, Not Coasting
11. Overland, West Of Suez
12. I Haven’t Seen Her In Ages