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(, which contains some flashing lights.)

Aside from the fact it sounds slightly like U2 at the start there's nothing particularly objectional about the song and there's a sort of thrumming threat to the guitars that suggests something really awesome may be about to happen.

Then it sort of ...doesn't. Instead, there's a bit that goes "wasted lives, hope takes flight" that sounds so incredibly Kaiser Chiefs you start wondering if (the admittedly lovely) Ricky Wilson just wandered into the studio for a minute whilst the 'Park were out for a cup of tea. "Wait a minute," you think, "is this going to have one of those aaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! bits that Kaiser Chiefs songs have in it? Also hang on a minute what the heck are these lyrics actually about?"

The lyrics are, as it happens, about wasted yoof. I'm a wasted yoof (well, probably barely clinging to the 'yoof' bit, being twenty-two and thus far too old to even pretend to be a teenager on Skins) and so this is the sort of thing that properly gets my back up. This song is, of course, not for the actual sick kids but for adults who can go "ooh yes, proper mad they are." Yep, those kids are totally off the rails and very unhappy; this represents so much of our society and blah blah blah.

If there's anything that makes you feel more disenfranchised than you already are, it's a song about how disenfranchised you are sung by some people who are clearly singing from tabloid headlines. I don't mind bands doing songs about doomed yoof, even if, like me, they're a little bit too old to necessarily understand Bebo; Lord knows enough bands of roughly my parents' age try it on but seriously; "don't revise" as a lyric? It's not exactly 'I Wanna Be Sedated' is it?

I'm deeply confused by this song. Maximo Park were best, for me, when they were singing from a personal point of view with a sort of romanticist social commentary possible to read in. That was really awesome. What I do not like and never have liked is the equivalent of preaching in music; this is like when The Offspring released 'The Kids Aren't Alright,' (the Who must be on a royalty, surely?) talking about how, y'know, kids weren't alright, when they'd summed up the frustrations, heartbreak, struggles and feelings of impotence for teenagers so much better across 'Smash'.

Also, it really does sound a lot like an early Kaiser Chiefs album track. Which was all very well if you were the Kaiser Chiefs early on in their career but a bit odd when you're Maximo Park on your third album.

Download: Out now
CD Released: April 27th

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(Hazel Robinson)