Album Review: Maximo Park - The National Health

It's album number four for alt-punk rockers Maximo Park, and while the quintet has always managed to straddle the safe side of the mid-noughties Britrock resurgence, The National Health stakes a claim in the territory of more polished production with some flourishes of the avant garde amid lyrics absolutely teeming with social commentary.

What makes this album viable is that while there's indeed a distinct shift from the sharp and clean, bare bones rock of previous albums, not an ounce of Paul Smith's instantly recognisable vocals has been lost in the process and that same raw, MP attitude is all the more infectious when spiked with state-of-the-world jibes and moments of respite.

This is how MP introduce us to their take on the world's backslide into strife, with opener When I Was Wild easing into a piano and cello-laden crooner that sets the tone for the whole album. That familiar Geordie pout soon takes over in the title track as they let rip with their trademark upbeat and playful fast-paced drums and layers of guitar lines. The galloping onslaught continues in Write This Down, Banlieue and Waves Of Fear, while Wolf Among Men grabs for some '80s synth and lifts it into a realm just a cut above the rest.

Tunes like Reluctant Love see instances of a more incongruent, relenting sound splashed throughout where, although there's still a stack of soaring guitars and synths, fast beats, and a whole bunch of zany harmonic lines going on, Smith and co. exercise restraint to offer sweet, falsetto lyrics and pop-rock bliss with warm, driving melodies that are instantly likeable, particularly in The Undercurrents and Take Me Home.