''Nature Always Wins'' is the seventh studio album by English

indie rock Indie rock is a subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the music they produc ...

band

Maxïmo Park Maxïmo Park are an English alternative rock band, formed in 2000 in Newcastle upon Tyne. The band consists of Paul Smith (vocals), Duncan Lloyd (guitar), and Tom English (drums). The band have released seven studio albums: '' A Certain Trigge ...

. It was released on 26 February 2021 and reached number two on the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts ...

, putting it level with '' Our Earthly Pleasures'' (2007) as the band's highest-charting album. The album was received positively by music critics, who compared it favourably to the band's early albums.

Composition

The album was produced during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

and was Maxïmo Park's first as a trio, following the departure of keyboardist Lukas Wooller. Wooller had moved to Australia with his wife. The album was produced by

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...

-based producer

Ben H. Allen Ben H. Allen (III.) is an American Grammy Award-winning record producer, mixer and songwriter, based in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. He has produced and mixed records by artists such as Walk the Moon, Animal Collective, Gnarls Barkley, Kaiser ...

, who collaborated remotely with the

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...

-based band during the pandemic. The track "Why Must a Building Burn" attacks the government response to the

Grenfell Tower Grenfell Tower is a derelict 24-storey residential tower block in North Kensington in London, England. The tower was completed in 1974 as part of the first phase of the Lancaster West Estate. The tower was named after Grenfell Road, which ran to ...

fire in 2017. The song also references the band's former merchandiser Nick Alexander, who was killed in the Bataclan concert hall attack. Tracks including "Versions of You", "Ardour" and "Baby, Sleep" were inspired by frontman Paul Smith's new responsibilities as a father. "Ardour", a song about parenting, features

Pauline Murray Pauline Murray (born 8 March 1958) is best known as the lead vocalist of the punk rock band Penetration, originally formed in 1976. Early years Pauline Murray was born on 8 March 1958 in Waterhouses, County Durham, England, and her parents late ...

of the punk rock band Penetration. Maxïmo Park had long been friends with Murray, having rehearsed in a studio named Polestar that she owns. Smith said that the name of the album came from a line of the final track "Child of the Flatlands", about nature slowly reclaiming the outskirts of a city. He said that recent natural disasters had taught him that humanity is at the mercy of nature.

Commercial performance

After its release, the album topped the

in its midweek update, at around 1,500 copies more than

Alice Cooper Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier, February 4, 1948) is an American rock singer whose career spans over five decades. With a raspy voice and a stage show that features numerous props and stage illusions, including pyrotechnics, guillot ...

's '' Detroit Stories'', while Architects' '' For Those That Wish to Exist'' was at number three. By the time the chart was published, Architects beat Maxïmo Park to number one by 550 copies. ''Nature Always Wins'' was the band's first top-10 entry since ''Too Much Information'' in 2014, and joint with '' Our Earthly Pleasures'' (2007) as the band's top-charting album. ''Nature Always Wins'' spent no more weeks in the chart. The album did top the

UK Independent Albums Chart The UK Independent Singles Chart and UK Independent Albums Chart are charts of the best-selling independent singles and albums, respectively, in the United Kingdom. Originally published in January 1980, and widely known as the indie chart, the rel ...

. It also charted for one week on Germany's

GfK Entertainment charts The GfK Entertainment charts are the official music charts in Germany and are gathered and published by GfK Entertainment (formerly Media Control and Media Control GfK International), a subsidiary of GfK, on behalf of Bundesverband Musikindust ...

, at number 27.

Critical reception

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Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

gives ''Nature Always Wins'' a score of 80/100 based on ten reviews from music critics, all of which were positive. It is the band's highest-rated album on Metacritic, ahead of debut '' A Certain Trigger'', which averaged 75/100 from 19 professional reviews in 2005. Heather Phares of

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

noted that the album moved away from the political themes of the band's three previous albums, instead having philosophical lyrics about relationships, similar to ''A Certain Trigger''. Damian Jones of ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

'' praised the album, though he found "Why Must a Building Burn" to be "brutal but jarringly upbeat". On No Ripcord, reviewer Juan Egardo Rodríguez considered it to be the band's best album since '' Quicken the Heart'' in 2009, and highlighted the track "All of Me", which he compared to "polar opposites"

R.E.M. R.E.M. was an American rock band from Athens, Georgia, formed in 1980 by drummer Bill Berry, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and lead vocalist Michael Stipe, who were students at the University of Georgia. One of the first alternati ...

and

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

. Robin Murray of ''Clash'' called it Maxïmo Park's best album for a decade, and noted how its political content was less overt than the preceding ''

Risk to Exist ''Risk To Exist'' is the sixth studio album by British indie rock band Maxïmo Park. It was released on 21 April 2017 through their own Daylighting imprint as well as Cooking Vinyl. The album's lead single was first aired on the Steve Lamacq ...

'' (2017).

Track listing

Personnel

Maxïmo Park * Paul Smith – lead vocals,

engineering Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more speciali ...

, field recording * Duncan Lloyd – bass, guitar, piano, synthesizer, background vocals, engineering, field recording * Tom English – drums, percussion, field recording Additional personnel * Ben H. Allen III –

production Production may refer to: Economics and business * Production (economics) * Production, the act of manufacturing goods * Production, in the outline of industrial organization, the act of making products (goods and services) * Production as a stati ...

, mixing, bass, guitar, percussion, programming, synthesizer * Heba Kadry – mastering * Alex Blamire – engineering * Annie Leeth – engineering * Ben Etter – engineering * Robert Whiteley – engineering * Tom Etherington – drums, design * Em Cole – band photo * Laura Lancaster – cover painting * John David Lawson – photography, painting photography

Charts

References

{{Maxïmo Park Maxïmo Park albums 2021 albums Albums produced by Ben H. Allen