If you've been patiently waiting for that dude in the Bravery to strike out on his own, your moment of glory might come soon enough. 2010 has seen solo records from the frontmen of the Killers and Bloc Party, two bands who played an enormous role in defining the hi-hat-heavy, synth-spiked sound of modern radio rock that turned "angular" into the most overused word in music criticism of 2005. Paul Smith makes it an official trend with Margins; while his band, Maxïmo Park, didn't quite reach the same level of notoriety, A Certain Trigger is certainly amongst the best of last decade's post-punk revival records. But while Flowers and Kele were able to use their albums as a logical continuation of their band's increasingly flamboyant tendencies, Maxïmo Park have been leaking momentum for years; by their third album, the songwriting digressed to the point where Smith's bowler hat was the band's most interesting feature.
But even with lower expectations, it's difficult to reconcile the past with Margins. The first two songs ease us in, reminiscent of the underrated "ballads" from Our Earthly Pleasures or the melodically cresting, heart-on-sleeve emoting of Frightened Rabbit. From there on out what's most striking is just how much of a solo album this is. The drums are lightly brushed, not pounded, guitars mostly acoustic and lightly trickling from earphone to earphone, Smith's tensile sing-speak is stretched to a Jarvis Cocker croon. And all of it is softened at the edges by a spacious, hands-off production aesthetic of holistic reverb and roomsound.
Yet while the you-are-there sound of Margins is sympathetic to Smith as a singer, the laconic tempos don't do him many favors as a songwriter. Nearly every track has some sort of charming bargaining chip-- the gorgeous guitar and knocking knick-knack percussion arrangement of "This Heat", the domestic voyeurism of "While You're in the Bath"-- but the melodies ramble along, never finding their footing. And then there are the indulgences-- "Alone, I Would've Dropped" is the kind of droning, Middle Eastern experiment most people try once and (rightfully) only once in their career, but "I Drew You Sleeping" draws a grand melodic guidance from its silvery Johnny Marr riffs to provide an intriguing glimpse of Smith as a luxuriant mope rather than an acoustic-toting confessor.
Smith himself claimed that making Margins was a result of a "seven-year itch," and it's certainly warranted that the guy who wrote "Apply Some Pressure" would want to ease back: As the dominant personality in a band struggling with its direction and, judging from the hurt in the lyrics, smarting from romantic abandonment, a "sort your shit out" album is understandable. But ultimately, Margins feels like an album of songs that needed to be exorcised more than shared.
