Maxïmo Park – The Kids Are Sick Again

Maxïmo Park - The Kids Are Sick Again

‘The Kids Are Sick Again’ is the appetiser to Maxïmo Park’s forthcoming third album Quicken the Heart. They’re back folks and this time they seem touchy, paranoid and a damn sight more serious. The song begins with sweeping electro bass clatter, and probing drums before vocalist Paul Smith arrives to sing about restless, mundane aspects of the suburban life “Pointless days pining/Afternoons whining/The suburbs scream/At passers by”. Punchy guitar carelessly drifts in and out like a crisp packet blowing down a quiet cul-de-sac.

‘The Kids are Sick Again’ builds and builds, and makes a futile attempt to be uplifting but for whatever reason the track stutters around the two minute mark and never catches flight. Ending with the ominous repetition of “The kids are sick again/Nothing to look forward to/They jumped the cliff again/Future sinks beneath the blue”.

Charismatic front man Paul Smith is usually the electric spark that makes Maxïmo Park appealing with his perceptive lyrics and distinctly poetic delivery. On ‘The Kids Are Sick Again’ he takes a while to get going, almost as if he is shaking off the rust. I am baffled about what Smith is actually saying in this song, is it a paean about his own school days, or a sociological observation about the youth of today and their apparent bleak prospects? Because it’s hard to believe a 30-year-old bloke [Ed - don't quote us on that] is down with the kids.

If we look at the bands that Maxïmo Park were lumped together with when they first broke through, the second wave of guitar bands post-Is this It if you will. The likes of Franz Ferdinand, The Futureheads, Bloc Party and The Kaiser Chiefs, then album number three has proved to be a bit of a sticking point for this illustrious grouping. The dilemma facing these bands is whether they continue to churn out another album in the formula that they have perfected (as Franz and the Kaisers have done). Do they go experiMENTAL (Bloc Party’s Intimacy) or do they find themselves victims of musical Darwinism and sadly fall away (The Futureheads)?

What we wanted was either a genuine new direction from Maxïmo Park or alternatively something perky and familiar. What we get is something that sounds like Maxïmo Park have always done, only tenser, perhaps teasing that Quicken the Heart will not veer far from the path well trodden.

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