Maximo Park have obviously been locked in a dark room and forced to do data entry for ten years. Or maybe a week? Or an hour? Either way, they sport the look and sound of deranged administrators - no more so than on this re-release of Apply Some Pressure.
It's like The Futureheads with panic attacks, full of twitching, stop-start riffs and ulcer inducing fears sung with a mouth full of stomach acid, and no brown paper bag in the land can calm them down. Lyrically, there is the usual relationship anxiety with the unusual worry of keeling over (see "You know that I'd love to see you in that dress / I hope that I live to see you undress"). Then, before you can say 'hyper ventilate', they are fretting about writing reviews, objectivity and the sugar content of digestive biscuits. Probably.
Fortunately, before they pass out, they muster up a rattling chorus full of hopeful early 80s synth. It might not have the Futureheads' barber shop harmonies but it should keep a dancefloor of jaded temp workers happily singing along through the winter months. And then they pass out.
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