Maxïmo Park

The British post-punk, electronic-inflected, indie-rock band Maxïmo Park was founded by drummer Tom English, guitarist Duncan Lloyd, bass player Archis Tiku, and keyboardist Lukas Wooller in Newcastle in 2001. They brought aboard lead singer Paul Smith a couple of years later. Tiku exited the band before their debut single in 2004. Their debut LP, 2005’s A Certain Trigger was nominated for a Mercury Prize and contained 4 top 20 songs including “Graffiti” and “Gone Missing”. They became one of the most respected post-punk revival band of their era with the continued success of albums like 2007’s Our Earthly Pleasures, a Number 2 LP that brought them their first top 10 single, “Our Velocity”. 2009’s Quicken the Heart returned them to the top 10 on the album chart, and the single “The Kids Are Sick Again” became their ninth top 5 UK Indie chart hit, and reached Number 2 on the Scottish pop charts. The band never shied away from emotional, personal material, an unusual stance for post-punk bands, but they also expressed their strong political attitudes, something that was accentuated on 2012’s hard-driving The National Health. They experimented with their sound for 2014’s Too Much Information, and were rewarded with their fifth consecutive top 15 album. After 2017’s Risk to Exist, Lukas Wooller left the band. Maxïmo Park returned as a trio in 2021 with Nature Always Wins.