Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Risk avoidance

Maximo Park's sixth album Risk To Exist has had positive write-ups in a few places, which makes me wonder whether my negative assessment for Buzz was overly hasty. It pains me to write them off (I loved debut LP A Certain Trigger back in 2005 and enjoyed their live show as recently as 2014), but I'm not keen on either the sonic direction they appear to be taking or Paul Smith's attempts to sound relevant and contemporary.

In what was a bumper month for new albums, I unfortunately missed out on reviewing duties for the LPs by Thurston Moore, At The Drive-In and Mark Lanegan, while other contributors also offered thoughts on the latest releases from Blondie, Bonnie Prince Billy, Erasure, Feist, Jane Weaver and Mac Demarco.

However, I did also contribute a review of the Peaness EP Are You Sure? to a singles section that this month largely featured local acts.

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