Maximo Park: 'New album will push us into weird space'

Maximo Park have revealed that they have around 24 songs written or part-written in preparation for the recording of their next album, which they hope to release in early 2009.

The band told BBC 6music that they hoped the album would push them into a "weird space".

Maximo Park played at the V Festival last weekend (August 16 and 17), where they debuted a new song, 'The Kids Are Sick Again'. Frontman Paul Smith said that the song was about the effect of advertisements on the youth today.

"I guess I thought society as a whole is bombarded by advertisements and to me that's why the kids are sick again," he said. "It's a funny sounding phrase but it's a serious song - so it's a nice blend of being amused, but [also] I hope people sit up and take notice of it."

Drummer Tom English added: "They [the youth of today] can't express themselves anymore and this is for them."

Smith went on to reveal that the band had completed writing 20 new songs and had part-completed "three or four" in preparation for their third album, the follow-up to 2007's 'Our Earthly Pleasures'.

Speaking about how the album might sound Smith said: "We want to push ourselves in to a weird space."