Biography
Maximo Park?s songs nearly always seem to be transmissions from the brain of a young man about to go postal (viz ?Night I Lost My Head? on last seven-inch), but if anything, ?Apply Some Pressure? ups the ante.As ever, punk poet cum brainbox vocalist Paul Smith has been thinking about things. And, as ever, much of his mental energy is directed towards his twin obsessions of Sex and Death. 'You know that I would love to see you next year/ I hope that I am still alive next year? You know that I would love to see you in that dress/ I hope that I will live to see you undressed!' The ?pressure? of the title is very much in evidence, with this being not so much a single release as a release of pent-up musical steam. Frustration is a strong feeling within the world of Maximo Park, and it?s sometimes hard to see who exactly is applying the pressure to whom. There is however, a clear feeling of strength in adversity and a sheer bloody-minded refusal to lie down, that underpins the band?s ringing guitars and hammered pianos and makes them somehow more inspirational than the rest.
| 
