Maximo Park Apply Some Pressure

• 12th Feb 2005

Maximo Park’s mission to bring urgent, driving, propulsive pop music to the people, picks up further pace with the announcement that live anthem ‘Apply Some Pressure’ is to be their first single of 2005. 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.

‘Apply Some Pressure’ was produced by Paul Epworth at Eastcote and mixed by Rich Costey. It is accompanied by two new songs – ‘Fear Of
Falling’ on the CD and ‘I Want You To Leave’ on the 7”, which adds
further weight to the argument that Maximo Park are incapable of writing anything approaching a b-side.

Maximo Park play:
FEB
01 NEWCASTLE FOUNDATION 0191 261 8985
04 NEWCASTLE NORTHUMBRIA UNI 0191 227 3762
05 LONDON FROG 020 8963 0940
13 LEEDS COCKPIT 0113 245 5570
14 WOLVERHAMPTON LITTLE CIVIC 01902 552 121
15 BIRMINGHAMJUG OF ALE 0121 449 1082
16 LONDON INFINITY – WHITE HEAT PRESENTS *PLEASE NOTE NEW
VENUE*
17 EXETER CAVERN 01392 425 309
19 BRISTOL LOUISIANA 0117 929 9008
20 LIVERPOOL BARFLY 0870 907 0999
21 NEWCASTLE CLUNY 0191 230 4474
22 GLASGOW BARFLY 0871 907 0999
24 Sheffield Fuzz Club
25 MANCHESTER DRY BAR 0161 832 1111
26 MIDDLESBOROUGH EMPIRE 01642 247 755

MAXIMO PARK
'Apply Some Pressure'
February 21 2005
Warp Records

Apply Some Pressure:
CD
‘Apply Some Pressure’
‘Fear Of Falling’
7”
‘Apply Some Pressure’
‘I Want You To Leave’