Maximo Park have announced a 2021 UK Tour to follow on from the release of their upcoming album Nature Always Wins. The dates, including a homecoming gig at Newcastle’s Boiler Shop, were unveiled by the band on their social media channels this morning.
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
