MAX IMO IMPACT

The newest hot new kids on the block are a UK five-piece that might just break away from the pack. Maximo Park, fronted by great rock frontman-in-waiting Paul Smith are irritated by the "baton change" predictability of it all, writes Brian Boyd.

NEXT! From Franz Ferdinand to Bloc Party to Kaiser Chiefs and now on to Maximo Park. There's a sense of inevitability about it - the same low-level buzz building up, the same creeping into the lower reaches of the singles chart, the same anticipation that the debut album will drag them out of the pages of the typewritten fanzines and onto the covers of glossy music mags.

The Newcastle five-piece, fronted by great rock frontman-in-waiting Paul Smith (think Jarvis Cocker cross-pollinated with Mark E Smith), are irritated by the "baton change" predictability of it all.

"It's just so music industry glib, isn't it?" says Smith, "this whole 'you're next in line' stuff. We don't want to repeat past glories, or past mistakes for that matter."

The band's debut, A Certain Trigger, justifies the hype. A tight, taut affair in the power- punk genre, the album rattles along at a pace and is leavened by Ray Davies/Paul Weller-style lyrical vignettes. No fancy artrock here.

It's as if Maximo Park read that sage advice which is always erroneously credited to Sniffing Glue magazine: "Here's three chords, now go out and form a band" (it's actually from Strangled fanzine). "That's what we're about," says Smith. "We deliberately use minimal effects and limit the sounds made by each instrument to give us set parameters in which to work."

Their press release displays a similarly stark approach: "We live in Newcastle upon Tyne, the place where we met and birthed our songs. We write pop songs about real life. We have no desire to mythologise our existence.

"We are a bit straight to the point," he laughs. "We like bare, sparse pop songs - record them just as we play them live - and even the images we use in our artwork are very direct. I think it's got something to do with growing up in Newcastle. There is that sense of cultural isolation. There's no real external forces on you, you're far away from the industry bubble, so you make a bubble of your own, I suppose.

"We are aware of a bit of a buzz around us - from the NME and Zane Lowe [BBC Radio 1's taste-maker DJ] - but we've seen that before with bands and it didn't get them anywhere, so pinch of salt and all of that."

Funny name for a band? "There's a story behind it and it sort of sums up who we are and what our attitude is," he says. "Our guitarist got the name from watching a documentary on this famous park in Havana called Maximo Gomez Park. The park is famous because it's one big talking shop; it's where people go to discuss politics and culture. Everyone has their say, puts their opinion across.

"We sort of liked it because it reflected how we work as a band. There are no egos, and everyone gets their say. We dropped the Gomez part of the name because of the band of the same name."

That's all very well, but it doesn't wash with this well-travelled rock writer: Maximo Gomez Park, also known as Domino Park, is named after a famous Cuban general who fought in that country's war of independence in the late 19th century. The park, which is indeed full of people talking politics and stuff (as well as playing dominos) is actually in Miami, in the city's Little Havana quarter. And very nice it is too.

In time-honoured olde indie fashion, Maximo Park borrowed £500 to record and press up their first seven inch single. "It's all we could think of doing," says Smith. "The songs were Graffiti and Going Missing and we pressed it on red vinyl only. We just went around the local record shops leaving copies with them and then we left a few in the Rough Trade shop in London.

"That was crucial because the head of Warp Records, Steve Beckett, picked up a copy and wanted to sign us."

Warp was not the most obvious home for a power-punk band, given that it mainly specialises in weirdo electronic acts such as The Aphex Twin. But Beckett had been the first man to sign Pulp, back when Warp used to have an indie imprint, and saw a similar wayward Englishness about this new band.

Both Smith and Jarvis Cocker deal in similar lyrical territory - shitty English lives (to overly simplify) - but take very different musical routes.

"I know we're an odd choice for the label," says Smith, "but I think what they see in us is the same independent, creative spirit that exists with The Aphex Twin and their other acts. They also take risks - they signed Vincent Gallo. But, to be honest, because of our guitar line-up we are probably now the most accessible band on their label."

The band went with Warp after turning down big money offers from the majors. "We told all the A&R people that if they wanted to see us live, they had to get on a train and come to Newcastle. We put on a gig in the city's oldest pub, the Cumberland Arms. It was the usual thing - one of the A&R guys said to us, 'You're going to be the new Radiohead,' and we were going, 'You've got problems, mate'. That was when we decided to get a manager, solely to act as a buffer between us and these type of record company people.

"The great thing about being signed to Warp is that we were signed by the boss of the label. If we went with a major, we just knew everything would have to go through five different people before a decision could be made about anything. Having said that, if only a major had been available to us, we would have taken it. We want to make music."

A Certain Trigger was produced by current name knob-twiddler Paul Epworth, who the band met through their friends and near neighbours, The Futureheads.

"With The Futureheads, we saw them progressing all the time. They played the same pubs as us in Newcastle and Sunderland, and we thought Paul Epworth did a really good job on their album, because we knew all their songs in the raw state, so it made perfect sense to use him."

Along with their incendiary ability with the three-minute single, what should distinguish Maximo Park from the pack is the fact that they sound like Britpop never happened and are untainted by its kitsch little Englander excesses.

"Given my age, that should have been the scene I was into," says Smith. "But it all passed me by. I was more Joy Division and The Smiths. I distinctly remember when Warner bought up the Morrissey/Marr catalogue and they released those two compilation albums back in the mid- 1990s and I listened to them in my bedroom for a few years. Then I took a swerve into post-rock and bands such as Tortoise, and then I got back into rock with Radiohead - emotionally charged music.

"What I really love, though, is the classic pop song structure - with a bit of chaos in there for good measure."

Maximo Park's A Certain Trigger is released today and reviewed online in today's Ticket.