Maximo Park - The National Health

In 2005, the North East’s Maximo Park were one of indie-rock’s brightest stars: sharp, quirky and clever, their debut was bulging with sprightly, spiky pop songs that scissor-kicked their way into your brain. But of course there was a glass ceiling and the band never seemed able to escape and grow past that double-edged slot: ‘second or third from top’ or ‘second stage headliner’.

Then came the lacklustre follow-up, Our Earthly Pleasures, a top-heavy affair that after a promising opening salvo lacked bite and stamina. Similarly 2009’s Quicken the Heart was like a wade through proverbial boredom. Afterwards vocalist Paul Smith seemed more interested in DJing in Newcastle clubs wearing a variety of different hats and releasing a solo album, which wasn’t a failure by any means but that certainly fitted a pattern of diminishing returns. But now the Park return with angstily titled album The National Health. Smith still has ants in his pants and an impressive collection of trilbies, but the real question is: have his band rediscovered their teeth?

In theory the answer is yes. Life and jaunt seems to spill out of their fourth album’s every orifice. Sure opener, ‘When I Was Wild’, a short piano-led lament where Smith mourns the carefree times of yore, hints at a different, more mature outlook, but how they lie.

A second later, as titular track ‘The National Health’ bursts into life, we’re back to the good days, geeky little keyboard riffs circling around angular guitars, all galloping and falling over each other to get ahead, Smith snarling: “The daily grind, the moral wealth, the portrait of the national health.” It’s great, and exudes a buzziness that we haven’t heard from Maximo in years.

Happily, it’s something that reoccurs again and again, as song after song reminds us about what made this band so truly aces in the first place. By now you’ll have heard single ‘Hips and Lips’, three and half minutes of deft foreplay which the band put out as first single. A sexual little bugger that dips and throbs breaking into occasional frenzied climaxes, Smith’s vocals shift between murmurs and howls. ‘Banlieue’ is beefy and tense, ‘Write This Down’ jerky and fizzy. ‘Until the World Would Open’ is classic Maximo, awkward and itchy, while ‘This Is What Becomes Of the Brokenhearted’ has a rather lovely, “the biggest mistake of all, I didn’t return your call” lyric.

It almost seems pathetically pedantic then to try and pick holes in what is evidently a strong album. Without a doubt The National Health is Maximo’s most sparkling collection of tunes since their debut, but at the same time there’s nothing here that is remotely unexpected. Maximo Park have simply gone from sounding like a shit Maximo Park to an awesome Maximo Park again. While that’s probably good enough for now – like a pet dog you’ve grown up with, you will always love the familiarity - but you can’t help wondering that if Maximo Park get the chance to make the same album again, we’ll be as forgiving the fifth time round.