Paul Smith – Diagrams review

There are so many people caught in the crossfire of the last two years that their numbers are too hard to count; abandoned by the mainstream media and the politicians who’re meant to represent them, light for those refugees from post-Brexit and Trump culture has been scarce.

On another sabbatical from Maximo Park, with Diagrams Paul Smith has brought together a clutch of songs that have been going round his head over for some time, a collection which, in a perhaps unlikely turn, has been influenced by the post-grunge sound of the early 1990’s.

Intelligently though Diagrams is not about policies but about the individuals who’s lives they impact upon, be it demonised immigrants (opener The Public Eye) or victims further afield (Syrian Plains).

Wary of becoming a man bracketed as talking loudly but saying little, the pop seam that his band has mined since they were inappropriately bracketed in the indie-rock revival of the mid-noughties is still apparent, especially on Diagrams best moments, Critical Mass and Beauty Contest. A man with much on his mind, there’s still much to admire in Smith’s articulate, honestly held passion.

You can read the full review here.