Maxïmo Park has announced new album, Risk To Exist, ahead of a sizeable 16-date UK tour starting off at the end of April 2017. The Newcastle-Upon-Tyne four piece will be following up 2014’s Too Much Information, and with the quality of opening single, also titled Risk To Exist, it’s looking like the band is going to be applying a fair amount of pressure on the UK album charts this year.
Reviews for Too Much Information weren’t quite as favourable as 2012’s The National Health, but that didn’t stop it breaking into the top ten. If the rest of the tracks from the new album live up to the potential laid down by the opening single then it should be another top ten album for the band.
Release date
Risk To Exist has been confirmed for a release date of the 24th April 2017 and it’ll be available on CD, vinyl LP, digital download and cassette. There’s also a deluxe version of the album, available on CD and digital download, which includes three bonus tracks, three acoustic tracks and a piano version. Check out the full track list below for details.
Maxïmo Park has also put together a few special merch bundles on its official store, with t-shirts, badges, tote bags and signed LPs aplenty. The £50 deluxe package includes the deluxe CD, signed vinyl LP, t-shirt, artwork print, cassette, tote bag, badge pack and Inspirational Information Fanzine.
Singles
The only single released is the title track, Risk To Exist, which you can listen to with the music video below. It brings in a little psych synth to the more traditional alt rock guitar hooks that we’re used to from Maxïmo Park, which works well. It starts off a little on the slow side, but doesn’t take too long to pick things up. The Bowie-esque interlude is pretty cool, but could have done without the spoken vocals, and the lyrics are as paradoxically enigmatic and easy to associate with as ever.
Risk To Exist music video:
Track list:
- What Did We Do To You To Deserve This?
- Get High (No, I Don’t)
- What Equals Love?
- Risk to Exist
- I’ll Be Around
- Work And Then Wait
- The Hero
- The Reason I Am Here
- Make What You Can
- Respond To The Feeling
- Alchemy
Extra deluxe version tracks:
- My Sharp Tongue (Bonus Track)
- A Brief Dream (Bonus Track)
- All Been Done Before (Bonus Track)
- Work And Then Wait (Acoustic)
- Risk to Exist (Acoustic)
- Get High (No, I Don’t) (Acoustic)
- I’ll Be Around (Piano Version)
Production
The album has been co-produced by Tom Schick and Maxïmo Park themselves with every track recorded live. While the album was written in the band’s North East of England home, it was recorded at Schick’s Chicago studio, The Loft, in autumn 2016.
As is the case with Depeche Mode’s upcoming new album, Spirit, there’s a certain political response to the lyrics on Risk To Exist. The album release details refer to it being “informed by the dire state of world affairs in 2016 and crumbling political systems”, so you might need to set yourself for some serious socio-political intent from the band. However, it also promises pop sensibilities and off-kilter rock, so maybe it’s not all doom and gloom.
First impressions
With a solid opening single and such a strong back catalogue of great album releases, we’re already putting Maxïmo Park’s Risk To Exist in our sonar selection. National Health is probably the best of Paul Smith et al’s more recent work, but it’s been a whopping twelve years since the genius of their opening album, A Certain Trigger, so hopefully the new record will see them back at their best.
