maximo park - "trial and error" (from the missing songs lp, released february 21, available for preorder here.)

in brief : the only error here would be if you, jo(e) america, continued to ignore maximo park.

i'm not sure why maximo park aren't better known in the states. i wonder if it's the name, not so much crap--bloc party and the kaiser chiefs are surely worse--but rather sounding a bit middle-of-the-pack. the killers do basically the same thing, only more pedestrian (but also more photogenic and more "gender-bending"), but, you know, they're called the killers. i was thinking about this v. same thing w/ r/ t/ the manic street preachers, who i think would be huge here right now if they were young again and from nebraska.

but maybe that's it, the british thing--and not the british thing so much as the accent thing. paul smith's is not the kind of accent we accept over here, being neither liam gallagher nor keith flint. so, maybe lines like "i sleep with my hands across my chest and i dream of you with someone else" or "i used to stay here all the time, watching your feelings pass me by" from "trial and error" which should be lighting myspace ablaze are instead being lost to impenetrability. it seems pretty straightforward to me ... but then i remember that when i watch the office w/ friends i have to put the subtitles on.

so, for those that get it, and esp. those of us in the states, "trial and error" is more bruising, misty-eyed goodness from paul smith & co., taken from missing songs, a collection of b-sides and a certain trigger demos. listening to this collection, the verses in "trial and error" in particular, i'm often reminded of squeeze, which is not something i picked up on their debut; it's w/ ease that i can hear glenn tilbrook singing, and writing, such lines. high praise, then, but also a bit damning :after all, how well did squeeze do in the states when paul carrack wasn't singing?

BONUS! here is the field music remix of current maximo single "i want you to stay" entitled "stay." now, this is really british, like something from the first wave of the british invasion. you know, when americans were really into britpop.