British rock band Maximo Park have announced they will be returning to Australian shores in 2012, playing two headline shows as well as at this year’s Falls Festival in Victoria and Tasmania. The band released their fourth album, ‘The National Health’, in June this year.

Three years on from their critically acclaimed album ‘Quicken the Heart’, with over 2 million copies of their albums sold and even an arena tour of Europe now under their collective belt, ‘The National Health‘ sees the band back in riproaring form; more vital, forceful and potent than ever. Recorded with the legendary Gil Norton (who has worked with everyone from The Pixies to Foo Fighters and Patti Smith) in Rockfield, Wales and Moles, Bath, it is at once ferocious and rousing, and a powerful antidote to the anodyne rock and manufactured pop that all too often passes for our music scene these days.

“We’re in a global recession and everyone is being bombarded with bouncy, happy music,” explains frontman Paul Smith. “The nation is out of control and the record is about taking back control, and being a force for change in your own life. It can’t speak for everybody but it has its eyes and ears all around us…that’s always been a Maximo Park thing: look at yourself. See how you relate to yourself and hopefully someone else will have something in common with it. Our songs are built on empathy. I would hope it’s as vital a music as people would want to hear.”