Description

Three years on from their critically acclaimed album Quicken the Heart, with over 2 million copies of their albums sold and even an arena tour of Europe now under their collective belt, The National Health sees the band back in riproaring form; more vital, forceful and potent than ever. Recorded with the legendary Gil Norton (who has worked with everyone from The Pixies to Foo Fighters and Patti Smith) in Rockfield, Wales and Moles, Bath, it is at once ferocious and rousing, and a powerful antidote to the anodyne rock and manufactured pop that all too often passes for our music scene these days.

Were in a global recession and everyone is being bombarded with bouncy, happy music, explains frontman Paul Smith. The nation is out of control and the record is about taking back control, and being a force for change in your own life. It cant speak for everybody but it has its eyes and ears all around usthats always been a Maximo Park thing: look at yourself. See how you relate to yourself and hopefully someone else will have something in common with it. Our songs are built on empathy. I would hope its as vital a music as people would want to hear.

This attitude is epitomized on the title track, which you can listen to over at the bands website ( now. A powerful blast of incendiary rock and roll, it harnesses the confusion, agitation and chaos currently seeping through the nations veins and jolts it violently awake, creating a persuasive clarion call to arms for the disenchanted. Similarly, Write This Down is a headrush of off-beam art pop, with Smith sighing and then your passion cooled/ you really had me fooled before launching into the angry chorus of I wont always be around/ youd better write this down. Elsewhere, forthcoming first single Hips and Lips crackles with newfound energy and vigour, and the jarring discord and tension simmering below the surface of Banlieue is brought noisily to the fore as Smith howls, Here come the animals at the climax.

Which is not to say theyve lost their tender touch crucially, The National Health contains two of their most plaintive love songs to date, with Smith swearing that this time, Im not going to lose any momentum in the lovelorn Reluctant Love, and the yearning The Undercurrents could possibly be the one of the most exquisite songs theyve written yet. With The National Health, Maximo Park are now working on a considerably larger scale than they ever have before, but they never forget the human connection that ties everything together. Cherish them now.