I had never listened to Maximum Joy, I knew they were connected withThe Pop Group, who I had a passing interest in, but I can now understand whyMaximum Joy have descended into such obscurity. The songs on thiscompilation have not withstood the test of time: the music here soundsextremely dated and (worse again) it isn’t very good; this might be oneonly for the nostalgia crowd and/or Pop Group collectors.
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The first track made me think this was going to be a good release;“White & Green Place” has a nice beat and the funky bass line pullsthe song along by the collar. Even the saxophone sounds good.Rainforth’s vocals are interesting, the lyrics are pretentious but shepulls it off. After this track the rest of the album is a chore tolisten to. I never thought that The Pop Group aged well but I can atleast hear some of the fire in their music. Maximum Joy sounded dullfrom the start. The disco vibe of “In the Air” wears thin very quickly.“Building Bridges” is lyrically good but is let down by hackneyed andstale music; “Oh wow, let’s fuse a jazzy sound with a Latin beat andadd some horrible trumpets.” No, let’s not.
Maximum Joy lack a soul. The songs, for all the frenetic bassplaying and shouty vocals, sound mechanical and like they came off aconveyer belt. At no point during Unlimited could I find anentry point for me to get into the groove and enjoy it. It’s a shamebecause there are some parts that could have been great if they hadshown some restraint. For example “Where’s Deke?” might have been adecent piece but the band go overboard with trying to fit as manyelements of their sound in one short track and over egg the cake. Thisalbum is a collection of wilting world music-inspired post-punknoodling which I’ve little to no time for.
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