Maximo Park

Hands up who thinks we need another gawky angular guitar band, all flailing limbs, skinny ties and tunes that elbow you in the ribs?

Maximo Park are a 5 piece Newcastle band with a spiky, urgent sound and in Paul Smith they have a charismatic singer with a Jarvis Cocker/Morrissey persona, and a combover. Form a queue ladies!

His voice jumps out of the undergrowth and gleefully and proudly opens it's coat. Songs about alcoholic amorous adventures and the desire to escape, all sung in his own North East accent. "When you write these songs you know what kind of person will like them....because you are that person."

He grew up in Billingham and dreamed of running away to the bright lights and fleshpots of Newcastle....40 miles up the road. Eventually he escaped to study Art History and Linguistics and teach pensioners to paint.

The original band members had also arrived in Newcastle for academic purposes and had been rehearsing for several years without a singer, without playing gigs and were on the verge of splitting up. The girlfriend of Drummer Tom English (he used to play with Field Music who are a top tip for anyone interested in XTC meets 10cc band.....that'll be everybody then?) spotted Smith singing along to Stevie Wonder's Superstition in a pub.

With his Oxfam suits, combover and jerky dancing, scissor kicking and Ian Curtis shaking, the gangly front man (careful how you Google that!) gave the band an immediate focus and personality injection. Debut single Graffiti was released on red vinyl as 300 copies, paid for by a friend. Within the year they had signed to Warp, the Sheffield techno label, toured with The Kaiser Chiefs and had their debut album A Certain Trigger nominated for a Mercury Prize. Phew!

The name Maximo Park comes from Maximo Gomez Park in Havana which, depending on how you look it, was either a hotbed for Cuban revolutionaries or a hotbed of old guys playing dominos.

Bassist Archis Tiku is one of those rare things in music, a genuine qualified, practising doctor of medicine. Dr Dre doesn't count as he qualified in Da Hood rather than at a recognised teaching hospital. Dr Fox isn't a real doctor (although I think the world is gradually waking up to that) and my own surgical skills are mainly tree based. Which leaves only Hank Wangford the singing Country and Western gynaecologist....there is something about that sentence that just trips off the tongue, but I can't quite put my finger on it..

Signal And Sign is the debut albums opening track and it pretty much nails the whole Maximo Park ethic. The drums fade in with the delicacy of Cybermen on a fun run and then we're off. The guitar riff has echoes of Don't fear The Reaper and the quick change of descending chords of Here Comes The Sun. He sings "Well I've been waiting here for hours....You left your hometown, where you grew up, I hadn't noticed how your accent had changed". It's familiar musical elements and familiar themes of escape from small towns. So far so Billy Liar...which is fine by me.

Apply Some Pressure has a frantic call and response guitar line and Smith vocally gurning with his look at me lyrics and here I am flasher's yelp. It's got another of Maximo Parks special moves, the mid song gear change. The song shifts from jerky chicken twitch to smooth upwardly mobile chords with a hint of keyboard. It just sounds really good as he sings "What happens when you lose everything, you start all over again."

Graffiti swirls around with a Doors/Stranglers/Inspiral Carpets feel. It's got a none more north easterly bellowed "That's enough I can't take anymore" refrain and an awkward step up that sounds messy...but right. It's a bit like on The Doors Touch Me which still sounds great even though you know the song is a sprawling mess, with sections just bolted together like a project in somebody's shed. It also enjoys the benefits of a gear change and a section that sounds like Broken Social Scene's 7/4 (Shoreline).

The Coast Is Always Changing has got the busy high bass sound and picked guitars of the classic Postcard era singles and Losing More Than I'll Ever Have (which is the title of the original Primal Scream song that Loaded was based on) has got a This Charming Man type riff. Acrobat has evidence of poetry (Stop! Police! Step away from the notebook!) and a bit of an atmosphere of Atmosphere.

The new album our Earthly Pleasures is due out next month and is produced by Gil Norton. The current single is Our Velocity. It's a careering, headlong rush through all their best moves from the last album and is easily my favourite thing they've done.

Even better it's on red vinyl. I've never been able to or wanted to resist the call of the coloured vinyl. Despite that I was disappointed to see that the Paul Smith's combover has been replaced by a Bowler Hat. It needs to be brought back. It was a hairdressing triumph and one of the best haircuts in Rock....Mercury Nominated album?.... pah! The haircut matters more!