Maxïmo Park - A Certain Trigger (2005)

Warp's entry into the New Wave revival play jaunty, precise power pop with punk's antipathies, all while exuding a tentative cool.

There are two kinds of rock bands: Those who discovered the music first, and those who spent their allowance on leather and had nothing left for records. If Maxïmo Park fall into the latter category, they do a good job of hiding it. A Certain Trigger, the band's debut full-length, is rife with enough peripatetic song structures and lithe arpeggios to convince substance-questioning naysayers of the Newcastle quintet's musical smarts. But, to an extent, yes, they're bandwagon-riders, and latecomers at that. The New Wave revival has already dined out on the charts. That's why, working with the scraps of a restless trend-seeking audience, Maxïmo Park's recent success in their homeland is so surprising.

Rather than turning up pebbles for the next Big Thing or exploiting a quirk, Maxïmo Park hone in on the specifics of an umbrella genre. Like the Futureheads or Postcard, they play jaunty, precise power pop with punk's antipathies, exuding a tentative cool. Managing (mostly) without fashonista caginess and attendant snark, Maxïmo Park are an easy sell. Occasionally, there's the requisite sneer at an ex or a self-deprecating barb, but A Certain Trigger is seldom anything short of gentlemanly.

That civility translates to a sort of sneakiness. Maxïmo Park's muted dynamics, understated vocals, and starchy production stack up to a weak first impression. But over the course of a slow'n'steady courtship, the album develops character. The tug comes partly from deceptively complicated song structures. Maxïmo Park dispense with traditional verse/chorus/verse formatting while the melodies, insouciantly catchy, play dumb. Songs slide from verse to pre-chorus to chorus to bridge to post-bridge with little fanfare. You're lucky to get a repeat, but who needs one when the band whip out with one-time, eight-bar dalliances like the ecstatic, whirling bridge on upwardly mobile single "Graffiti"?