Stream Of Life

Maxïmo Park's eighth studio album. The road to 'Stream of Life' saw the band link up once again with Ben Allen (Gnarls Barkley, Animal Collective), Grammy-winning producer of 2021's near-chart-topping, pandemic-era tour de force Nature Always Wins, and as a result it marks the first time they have all been together in a studio to make an album since 2016. It finds the band in perhaps the most reflective state they've been in. Lead singer Paul Smith, this most lit-pop of lyric writers, took the album title from a short story by Ukrainian-born Brazilian writer Clarice Lispector, inspired by both its stream of consciousness style and the way it prompts reflection on the inner mechanisms of people's minds. It begs the question of why they do the things that they do, even when they can seem counterintuitive to the outsider. There's an inner flow to every individual - a stream of life. Commenting on the album, lead singer Paul Smith says: 'We've always tried to document the world around us at each stage of our lives while subtly nudging the music forward each time - this record continues that mission. It was great to be back in a studio after recording remotely last time. Working with Ben in Atlanta, and Burke in Byker, was as stimulating as it's ever been, and I think we captured that energy. Thematically, the record covers passion, politics, and privilege amongst other topics.'