The National Health

Maximo Park put high hopes on their new album

Could it be that the lads from Maximo Park gave a really serious though to the healthcare system of their country? Well, if you look at the title of their fresh offer, The National Health, it looks like they did. Yet if you listen properly to this work by the band from the industrial city of Newcastle, you will see that the record is named so after one of its best tracks. Song The National Health is placed in the opening part of the album and is only preceded by intro When I Was Wild coming as a monologue about hardships of youth. Maximo Park once play convincingly parts of wise men who can no longer remain still. To be heard better the Englishmen back up their words with perfect guitar sound, and to be remembered for longer, they supply their music with catchiness and melodiousness. The National Health is album number four by Maximo Park, and this is where the band that was experimenting and searching for quite a while seems to know for sure what needs to be done and it is done as well as it could be.

Varieties of rocks on The National Health

Once opposed to each other, experimentally intellectual rock and rebellious punk encounter on this album and even become inseparable friends. In fact, track The National Health is classic post punk embracing speed and roughness alongside tunefulness and even glimpses of intellectuality and nobleness in the frontman’s voice. Yet it is not as simple as it might seem. Occasional flirting with electronica make certain episodes of the Maximo Park’s album sound like Depeche Mode, for example in the intro to Hips And Lips or futuristic Banlieue. Still, there is much more rock in The National Health than anything else. At times, this rock is explosive drums and unleashed emotions, like in Write This Down, or Wolf Among Men, and at other times, it is a tricky knot of tunes and light melancholy, like in Reluctant Love, or Until The Earth Would Open. And, of course, rock is ballads, but here, on The National Health, they, too, are different. This Is What Becomes Of The Brokenhearted is a soft one with piano in its heart, and The Undercurrents is edgier and more desperate, which is inspired by Patty Smith’s guest vocals.

Everything best Maximo Park can offer

The mandatory program or the basic set of The National Health is concluded by another punk rock track Waves Of Fear, as if reminding that despite all the experiments and borrowings, Maximo Park remain a rock band in the first place. The bonuses in the extended version are acoustic remakes of the mentioned songs, which should be seen as nothing more than just a pleasant present for the ensemble’s fans’ this part of the record bears no surprises. Everything the musicians wanted to say is said in the first thirteen tracks of the record. The National Health, dedicated to soul-searching, as the authors said, is an album where the Englishmen extract the most out of their abilities. With a perfect awareness of their duties, giving done their work in good faith, all the members of Maximo Park can now be proud of their new album. This release is another illustration of vast prospects opened to those rockers who know how to play rock music.