Quicken The Heart

But persevere with this album and it will deliver in spades. I bought this on the day it came out, put in in my cd player and after 1 listen it came out to be replaced by our eartly pleasures. I didn't feel they had captured any of the sound, or quality of writing that their 2 previous albums, but I've kept with it and now I have to say it stands toe to toe with anyting they've ever produced. I think the style of music and lyricism means they will never be a band that you will instantly be hooked on everything written, but each and every song on this album is a cracker.

I've been a big fan of Maximo Park since their first album, so I was eager to hear this, their third release, the day it came out. Like both previous albums, Quicken The Heart is a lot deeper than you'd think on your first listen and quickly becomes infectious. Stand out tracks for me are the exhilirating The Kids Are Sick Again, the feverish Overland, West of Suez and the extremely poignant I Haven't Seen Her In Ages. Altogether, another intelligent and resonant album from one of the best british bands out there.

It takes a few listens for the songs to get in your head but after a listen or two your soon singing along as though youve heard it a million times!
Good tracks include the penultimate clinch, in another world and overland' west of suez. Give it a listn, dont give up you wont be sorry ppl

I like other people was eagerly anticipating this release. I have been a fan of maximo park from the beginning. However this album lacks the energy and depth of the previous 2 albums. Smith is a great lyricist, but fails to deliver on this record and the same applies to the music. Where are the hooks and amazing lyrics that we are used to??

I bought this album as a huge maximo fan, and it does not disappoint.....takes a while for the songs to get in your head but when they do u cant get them out. Iwent to watch them last night in liverpool and seeing the songs played live just made me love this album even more. Pauls voice sounds amazing on the tracks and songs such as 'lets get clinical' shopw of his brill voice. He had some pretty good dance moves too.

Lacking a few "quicker" tracks as found on previous albums, this album proves quite dissappointing. I could wait for it to come after wraitlike, which i thought most of the album would sound like. After the 1st 3 songs, the album seems to lose its grip on the listener. Lacks the inspirational lyrics of the other album.
However, if your a fan you will appriciate the album, and you should buy it. If you arent a fan i would say, dont bother, try the otheres 1st.

I've loved maximo park from the beginning, and this tops the lot in my opinion, songs become stuck in your head incrediby quickly, and there are some incredible lyrics, my favourite being In Another World 'You'll still end up, on a revolving dancefloor, in the middle of the river'. A brilliantly crafted album of instant classics. Although some tracks arent as strong as some of the previous, overall there are enough great songs to put this very high in my all-time greatest albums.

As a subscirber to their mailing list I was in high anticipation for Quicken the Heart (QTH) which was promised to do just that; 'quicken the heart'. This was a promise from Maximo Park which I feel they have failed to deliver. I was expecting many great songs on the same lines as 'Our Velocity', and 'Girls Who Play Guitars' (from 2nd album 'Our Earthly Pleasure'). It just seems lacklustre, 'Wraithlike' is a great start and possibly the strongest track on the album. 'The Kids are Sick Again' does not grab as a supposed first single and I would have gone for the more fun 'Let's Get Clinical'. This is not to say it is an awful album, far from it, but it took me three good listens with real concentration to start liking this album, and I've been a Park fan since they first started it's just not a great album. I'm gutted too as I expected great things, but I think if I went to see them live, I would be bored for these new songs, bar a couple.

P.S. when I posted my opinion on Maximo Park's Myspace they were not published..... say's it all to me. Better luck next time guys!

Third album - will they get so big in sound and produced that they end up sounding stadium impersonal and lose their idiosyncratic charm in the process? I didn't really fear this, since the second album, though definitely given a different production polish from A Certain Trigger, had avoided this hurdle already. But it did make me wonder where the sound would go and how they could push it further.

The answer lies in more keys, less straight guitar and more guitar which often sounds like keys (and even vocal - see "Overland" 's intro) and an unashamedly pop route which takes in early 80s infleunces (Joy Division - "Penultimate Clinch", Blondie - "Calm", Gary Numan - "Let's Get Clinical" and mid 80s A-Ha - "In Another World", "I Haven't Seen Her in Ages") without sounding slavishly derivative and still retaining Maximo's typically quixotic approach to the verse and chorus formula and key and tempo changes ("Cloud of Mystery" in paricular for the key changes). "Overland" is a masterpiece in confidence, taking the Maximo chaos to the limit - you think it's going nowhere but when you get to know it you realise the verse and chorus and it's arguably the one track where straight guitar and keys come out equal.

So, the songrwriting prevails, though possibly the pop strength makes the lyricism of gritty modern urban life a bit less immediate at first. It's interesting that though this is definitely a musical progression there are moments of old school structure and melody that take you back to A Certian Trigger but with a 2009 twist - "Let's Get Clinical" is reminsicent of "I Want You to Stay" while "I Haven't Seen Her in Ages", in its simnplicity (and folkishly beautiful close harmonies), is a "Kiss You Better" for 2009 and, like "Kiss You Better", is a sweet album closer.

In keeping with the unashamed pop feel, I've counted at least 4 songs with enthusiastic "wo-oh"s and oh-oh"s, which somehow sit easily alongside Maximo's ability to produce film noir soundtracks such as "Roller Disco Dreams" (for me, some kind of reprise in feel of Our Earthly Pleasures' "Parisian Skies"). With that and "Cloud of Mystery" I'm sure they've been listening to the music of Konami's horror strategy game series, Silent Hill! A minor minor negative point - "Questing Not Coasting" sounds as though it was recorded at a different time, its production just doesn't have the energy of the rest of the tracks - but it's a small minus in a sea of plusses.

So it's quintesssentially Maximo and yet not just more of the same, though I guess the move to less noticeable guitar and more synth might polarise opinion and leave some harking back to the rawer sound of old. Personally, I'm loving the confidence with which they have been able to deliver something so unashamedly pop. I'm sure I can hear in the tracks that Paul really enjoys singing these songs - and that's singing with a full, lusty karaoke heart. Go and listen on their MySpace for the rest of this week - what have you got to lose? - and buy without regret! It's a rare feat that an album almost immediately catchy also has enough depth to keep you coming back. I've been listening on repeat the past 3 days without a hint of boredom yet and I keep discovering new elements. I can't wait to play it on a music system when I get the cd!

It's an incomparable experience to feel so excited that a new album from a band you appreciate has gone beyond your expecatations - and Maximo, for me, have done it again. Some published reviews have been kinder to this album than the last. I hope this comes off and this is the year Maximo

'Quicken The Heart', the latest offering from new wave/post-punk five piece Maximo Park, picks up where second album 'Our Earthly Pleasures' left off, and takes it one step further.

Retaining their pop sensibilities, and as ever, Paul Smith's razor-sharp yet everyman lyrics, the 'Park soar, particularly on the claustrophobic textures of lead single 'The Kids Are Sick Again' - when the layers finally tighten into one last, anthemic chorus, it is an exhilarating release.

Despite the craftily realised Newcastle-centric settings of some of the songs - this time referencing the infamous revolving dancefloor of recently-deceased riverboat nightclub Tuxedo Princess - the appeal is broad - and should be.

'Let's Get Clinical' sees Paul Smith adopt a misfit sex symbol guise akin to Morrissey or Jarvis Cocker, whilst songs like 'A Cloud Of Mystery' and 'I Haven't Seen Her In Ages' are shot through with the perpetual yearning Maximo fans will be familiar with.

Ever creeping into the fringes of the mainstream consciousness, Quicken The Heart is Maximo Park's chance to stride into the charts and claim what is theirs.

A cut above.