Music

Maximo Park

O2 ABC, Glasgow

Jonathan Geddes

four stars

THERE was something disheartening about arriving at the O2 ABC to find it short of a capacity crowd. The last time Maximo Park were touring they sold out the Barrowland, on the back of revisiting their 2005 debut album A Certain Trigger. The depressing suggestion is that nostalgia is an easier sell than something more modern.

That is a shame, because this set suggested the band are in better form than for some time. Recent album Risk To Exist, their sixth, sees the band get both political and funky, and that carried over to the live stage. Hat-wearing singer Paul Smith fired off several shots aimed at Brexit and Westminster politics, and while these are hardly revolutionary targets, at least he is trying to have his band say something rather than acquiesce via artistic silence.

There was an anger to Work And Then Wait’s benefits structure critique but also a dancefloor-friendly strut, helped along by bassist Paul Rafferty, and The Hero kept that feeling going. Maximo Park have always been a danceable band, but they have rarely honed that vibe as much as now, and, although not everything worked, both What Equals Love? and set closer Get High (No I Don’t) sashayed into view with playful, groove-heavy confidence.

Smith himself has toned down the high kicks and wild leaps of before in favour of hip swivels, although his banter veered on cheesy as always, including reflections on a shirt he’d just purchased.

Still, if that was all getting too much, then the high calibre indie of Apply Some Pressure, a jumping Our Velocity and the melancholy guitar pop of The Coast Is Always Changing were there to fall back on. It was their refreshing reinvention that lingered longest in the mind, though.