Indie rock band Maxïmo Park, from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, were part of the 2000’s British post-punk revival, alongside bands such as Arctic Monkeys, The Libertines and Franz Ferdinand.  The band released their debut album ‘A Certain Trigger‘ in 2005, and 20 years later they have announced a tour to celebrate their seminal album, ending their tour with a homecoming show in the O2 City Hall in Newcastle.

‘A Certain Trigger‘ includes singles such as ‘Apply Some Pressure’ and ‘Going Missing’ and was released to critical acclaim. The album was nominated for the 2005 Mercury Prize and reached #20 on the UK Albums Chart. It  sold over 500,000 copies worldwide and was certified Gold by the BPI. On the 20th anniversary tour, the band will play the album in it’s entirety as well as some of their greatest hits from throughout the years.

They announced their tour on Instagram, displayed below:

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A post shared by Maximo Park (@maximoparkofficial)

Speaking to Rolling Stone, Paul Smith, frontman of Maxïmo Park said ““Not many bands make it to a twentieth year together so we’re having a big celebration, with a special 20th anniversary tour and by giving a fresh perspective to A Certain Trigger. Our first album remains dear to so many people, and compiling archive material for the reissue has been like entering a time machine – thrilling, but also a bit scary!”.

The band have been teasing the announcement of this tour for the past 3 days, with the following post being uploaded to Instagram on Monday. This caused speculation and excitement amongst fans who have been eagerly awaiting this announcement, following their hugely successful 10th anniversary tour of the same album in 2015.

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Tickets for the band’s UK tour are available on their official website.

Maxïmo Park Tour Dates:
6th Feb – O2 Academy, Glasgow
7th Feb – O2 Victoria Warehouse, Manchester
8th Feb – O2 Academy, Liverpool
10th Feb – O2 Academy, Bournemouth
11th Feb – O2 Academy, Bristol
13th Feb – O2 Academy, Birmingham
14th Feb – O2 Brixton Academy, London
15th Feb – O2 Academy, Oxford
17th Feb – Corn Exchange, Cambridge
18th Feb – Rock City, Nottingham
20th Feb – O2 Academy, Leeds
21st Feb – O2 City Hall, Newcastle

Maxïmo Park have also created a 20 year anniversary edition of the album signed by the band, which will be released on October 31 2025. The reissue is available in 3 formats, a double CD and a double vinyl, including original demos of ‘Apply Some Pressure’ and more, as well as a triple vinyl, with the third vinyl containing remixes of songs from the album. It is a valuable item for Maxïmo Park’s faithful fans. It is available for pre-order here.

The Album received four star review by NME’s Damian Jones who commented: “the trio, come bouncing back with a pop sizzling firecracker of an album. Fist-pumping comeback single “All Of Me” has already come kung fu kicking out of the blocks with its driving Killers-style synth line and hook-laden chorus”. 

Quick recap: at the moment ‘Nature Always Wins’ is at number one in the UK album charts and you can help it stay there by buying a copy, bundled with a ticket for one of these very special gigs https://t.co/sM2kATYLtO #MaximoPark4Number1

— Maximo Park (@maximopark) March 2, 2021

Today Maximo Park announced on their Twitter ticket sale for two special gigs in London, Leeds and Manchester this September as a thank you to their fans for “getting us halfway to Number1!“. The concerts will include songs from two of their last albums with some songs from “Our Earthly Pleasures” they haven’t performed for over a decade. 

We’re super excited about the September shows we’ve just announced: with a new album to play AND all of ‘Our Earthly Pleasures’, some of which we haven’t played live for over a decade! If Leeds/London seem a bit far away, stay tuned…#MaximoPark4Number1 — Maximo Park (@maximopark) March 2, 2021

Prior to the real-life shows, Maximo Park promised their fans a live-streamed concert that can be watched on the 6th March and will feature the band’s biggest hits. Tickets are still available to purchase. The band starts their tour in the UK through June with first concert in Bristol and concluding in Digbeth.

For a thorough information about band’s latest release and full list of tour dates, head over to Eunmin’s recent article.

Tickets for the additional Autumn shows can be purchased here:

07/09/21 – Pryzm – Kingston/London
08/09 – Beckett University  – Leeds
13/09 – Manchester Academy –  Manchester

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Since the premiere of lead single ‘Baby Sleep’, the video, which dropped in October of last year. And single ‘Child of the Flatlands’ a month prior and finally the third single ‘I Don’t Know What I’m Doing’ which dropped on 27 November 2020, a lot of buzz has been circulating over the anticipated release of the band’s seventh studio album ‘Nature Always Wins‘ to be released on February 26th 2021.

As music fans have seen, the Lockdown blues has not been strong enough to stop creativity. And now Maximo Park has returned to show us what they have been up to during COVID. Lead singer, Paul Smith describes their triumphant return and how the band coped during Lockdown, ‘’I’m so happy we were able to make this album during the lockdown, as it’s been a challenging time for everyone’ Smith continues to chart the band’s passage of time, ‘After almost 4 years since ‘Risk To Exist’, we wanted to explore new musical territory (for us) without sacrificing our trademark melodic twists and heartfelt lyrics. As always, the passing of time looms large, although the songs contain more affection for the past than before, and there are occasional hints of the fractious, divided time that we live in.”

The Newcastle Upon Tyne cooky rockers have a lot to follow-up with, with two gold albums and six studio albums under their belt. And of course, not forgetting, their Mercury Prize nomination, back in 2005 a time where hand sanitiser was not a daily routine and high waisted skinny jeans were everywhere the band was nominated for debut ‘A Certain Trigger’. They were the Indie darlings that we couldn’t stop listening to, and now with their return, they are set to regain their crown. Die-hard fans will remember the 2005 release of their second single ‘Apply Some Pressure’ which capitulated the stylish bands into the stars and our iPod Nanos and will no doubt be performed in their live steam, March 6th 2021 from the Riverside venue.

If the lead single ‘Baby Sleeps’ is anything to go on, fans are seeing that nothing has been sacrificed with the band safely rooted in their unique Indie sound. Although the passing of time often leaves uncertainty and doubts, fans now can feel certain for the return of Maximo Park on March 6th 2021.

Click here to pre-order the album.

Maximo Park UK 2021 Tour

25/02/2021- Club Pryzm – Kingston Upon Thames (Postponed)

26/02 – Club Pryzm – Kingston Upon Thames (Postponed)

27/02 – Tyne Theatre – Newcastle Upon Tyne (Postponed)

22/04 – Club Pryzm – Kingston Upon Thames

23/04 – Club Pryzm – Kingston Upon Thames

24/04 – Tyne Theatre – Newcastle Upon Tyne

08/06 – Trinity Centre – Bristol

09/06 – Theatre, EartH – London

10/06 – Theatre, EartH – London

12/06 – O2 Ritz – Manchester

13/06 – Boiler Shop – Newcastle Upon Tyne

15/06 – The Leadmill – Sheffield

16/06 – Saint Luke’s – Glasgow

17/06 – The Mill Digbeth – Digbeth

20/06 – Isle of wright festival 2021 – Newport (Isle of Wright)

31/07 – Neverworld 2021 – Edenbridge

24/08 – Fat Sams – Dundee

25/08 – Liquid Room – Edinburgh

27-29/08 – Solfest 2021 – Silloth

27/08 – Brudenell Social Club – Leeds

29/08 – Blitz – Preston

30/08 – Art’s Club – Liverpool

01/09 – Empire Coventry – Coventry

02/09 – Academy – Oxford

03/09 – The Brook – Southampton

05/09 – De La Warr Pavilion – Bexhill-On-Sea

06/09 – Waterfront – Norwich

In a YouTube Q&A session with fans introducing the song, Smith said “We wanted to release ‘All Of Me’ now as it’s an uplifting, catchy big single and a big pop song. We thought it would be a good way to kick off the album.” The singer also suggested that the video location (Hulme in Greater Manchester) was chosen to allude to the deterioration of the post-war consensus on housing and the welfare state, a theme that has cropped in the band’s work over the last decade. Smith said “I’ve been reading this book called ‘Municipal Dreams’ about council housing and how various different governments have tried to house people and look after them, or not. There used to be these places called Crescents in Hulme, a really interesting housing estate, but things didn’t go well and it get demolished. So I was quite interested to go there and film our video.”

Early indications from the band suggest that Nature Always Wins will maintain some of the political energy of its 2017 predecessor Risk To Exist – albeit in a less overt, and perhaps more unifying way. Speaking to Clash, Paul Smith said “We wanted to be explicit on the last record. Some people thought we went over the line, but other people thought it wasn’t far enough… Maybe we’re Centrist Dads! But you put yourselves out there, and you can’t please everybody.

He added “We’ve always done what we felt was best. We follow our own path. This is who we are and you can either like it or lump it! We live in a divided country, and we sit on the left side of that divide. We don’t apologise for that. But we’re less extreme, more conciliatory, and we’re trying to find points of connection with our audience in all of the songs. Whether they’re more emotional or more cerebral. It’s about trying to find common ground.”

Sonically, there’s been a real sense of variety to the tracks released from Nature Always Wins thus far. The lead single from the LP, Children of the Flatlands was in the group’s own words a “mildly psychedelic pop odyssey“; while its follow-up Baby, Sleep was as a more up-tempo helping of the distinctive Northumbrian art rock style that the band mastered on their razor-sharp 2005 debut album A Certain Trigger. Meanwhile the third single from the new album, I Don’t Know What I’m Doing, served as a post-punk ode to the challenges of parenting.

The Geordie rockers are due to take the new album on tour around the UK this summer. The list of confirmed tour dates is as follows:

08/06/21 – Trinity Centre – Bristol
09/06 – Earth Theatre – London
12/06 – O2 Ritz – Manchester
13/06 – Boiler Shop – Newcastle
15/06 – Leadmill – Sheffield
16/06 – Saint Lukes – Glasgow
17/06/21 – The Mill – Birmingham

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We cannot wait to tread the boards again in 2021. The question is: are you ready to rock (thoughtfully)?! Pre-order Nature Always Wins to gain exclusive access to our tour pre-sale. (9am BST, Wed 21st Oct). Link in bio

A post shared by Maximo Park (@maximoparkofficial) on Oct 16, 2020 at 6:56am PDT

Nature Always Wins, Maximo Park’s seventh studio album, is due for release on February 26th 2021 and is available to pre-order now. The band have already given fans a taste of what to expect on the new record with two new tracks: the semi-psychedelic Child Of The Flatlands and Baby, Sleep, an up-tempo helping of the distinctive ‘art pop’ style that powered their memorable 2005 debut album A Certain Trigger.

In an NME interview, lead singer Paul Smith has suggested the new album will showcase a partial change in direction from its successor, 2017’s Risk To Exist. He said “Last time we wanted to make more political music, but we also didn’t want to rely on the clichés of it being a punk record…With this one, I’ve become a parent over the past four years and the other guys in the band have got kids as well and I didn’t want to ignore it but I also didn’t want it to be the central aspect of the record because I want the record to be open to all.  I’ve tried to make it as personal and specific as I can without it losing that universal appeal, otherwise it feels too inward or self-obsessed.”

Paul Smith’s comments here shouldn’t be read as an attempt to downplay polemical elements of Nature Always Wins, which looks set to sustain some the powerful political themes of the band’s work over the last decade. Album track Why Must A Building Burn focuses on the tragedy and injustice of the Grenfell Tower fire; while the aforementioned Child Of The Flatlands touches on the impact of austerity, social unrest and the impact of deindustrialisation in the North East England.

The latter point also applies to Smith’s campaigning work in opposition to plans to demolish Redcar Steelworks’ blast furnace, which closed in 2015. In a recent BBC interview on the issue he said “As a Billingham-raised songwriter based in the North East, I’m constantly inspired by the mixture of our industrial heritage with the natural beauty of the region. If this building is demolished, along with some of the genuinely unusual structures around it, they will become faded photographs that local children might never see.“

Tickets for Maximo Park’s 2021 UK Tour go on sale from 9am on Friday 23rd October. The tour dates coincide with the band’s existing festival commitments at the Isle of Wight Festival (UK), Deichbrand (Germany), Neverworld (UK) and dcode (Spain).

Tour dates:

08/06/21 – Trinity Centre – Bristol
09/06 – Earth Theatre – London
12/06 – O2 Ritz – Manchester
13/06 – Boiler Shop – Newcastle
15/06 – Leadmill – Sheffield
16/06 – Saint Lukes – Glasgow
17/06/21 – The Mill – Birmingham

Our new leftfield pop odyssey ‘Child Of The Flatlands’ is available now in all the usual online places. It’s been a while since we released new music… we hope you enjoy it! https://t.co/uZF67QV2dY pic.twitter.com/UVXbyAMmai

— Maximo Park (@maximopark) September 14, 2020

‘Child Of The Flatlands’ comes with a video that can’t be described as anything short of technicolour. Even before watching the video, the single bears reminiscence to eighties synth pop bands; you can sort of hear that it takes inspiration from concrete structures. In the video, directed by Greg Hodgson, this whiff of inspiration seems to erupt before your eyes and you hardly know where to look as the sound suddenly becomes completely visual.

Yet concrete is pitched against the natural world, as lead singer Paul Smith croons: “nature always wins, makes itself known.” Certainly, ‘Child Of The Flatlands’ seems to have the energy of a fight bubbling under the surface.

Generally, ‘Child Of The Flatlands’ deals in abstracts and broad themes. It does not strike you as a song speaking directly about the last six months – but this line feels prophetic: “the libraries are closing down now / where will the children go when they feel all alone?”  Its energy is changing all the time; it opens with urgency but at times it is slow and intimate. Smith calls it “episodic”.

Smith continues to present the complexities of their new single. He says: “Child Of The Flatlands is an affectionate look at both the psychic and physical edgelands of the town where I grew up, punctuated by snapshots of modern Britain as viewed from a distant hillside.

“It’s about the inevitability of nature (in all senses of the word) over the order we try to impose on it. The quiet, melancholy choruses lament the loss of community spaces for marginalised people, and the overall pace is meant to evoke a long walk, collaging found sound, strings and insistent piano to create a mildly psychedelic pop odyssey.

“We commissioned Greg Hodgson to reflect the distorted blur of youth through his VHS lens, and to create a dreamlike vision of Teesside that reflects the episodic nature of the music. Hopefully viewers will recognise something of their own youth, playing in places where nature encroaches upon the urban landscape.”

Certainly, the combination of lurid technicolour and the synth pop inspiration is somehow nostalgic. At the same time, ‘Child Of The Flatlands’ is unmistakably Maximo Park, although slower, serious, and even more poetic.

A couple of weeks ago, Maximo Park took their turn at headlining the Virgin Money Unity Arena, the UK’s first socially distanced arena. It was opened by Sam Fender earlier this year, and its upcoming performances include Chase & Status, Kaiser Chiefs and last week’s worthy contender for the battle of the charts, Declan McKenna. You can find out more here.