The second album from Newcastle's Maximo Park, Our Earthly Pleasures confirms its creators to be one of the UK's more idiosyncratic indie outfits ??? the sort of bookish, educated rockers for whom intelligence means something more than reading a book while you're having your photo taken. Not only does vocalist Paul Smith boast the sort of wit and wisdom to rhyme the words "hypothetical", "alphabetical", "theoretical" and "dialectical" (see 'A Fortnight's Time') without coming off as a pretentious try-hard, the songs Maximo pen zip along with a gleaming tunefulness and athletic agility that denies any obvious musical influence. Much here is concerned with collapsing relationships, although Smith takes a more circuitous route than most though the familiar territory of a love song: 'Our Velocity' treats male-female communication as a cipher to be cracked, while the chiming 'Books From Boxes' takes stock of a love affair of a relationship from its accumulated paper trail. Far from being introspective and self-absorbed, however, Our Earthly Pleasures is an energetic, vibrant affair, thanks in part to the work of Pixies producer Gil Norton, who thickens up Lukas Wooler's synth and hones the band dynamic to quiet/loud perfection. --Louis Pattison

First lets start with the jargon.

Lyrically mature, musically complex but accessible....OK?

Now the real stuff. Brilliant, catchy tunes, addictive, play it again and again, rousing rock, clever, original, awesome (sorry about that one), big fat smiles, better than Cold Patrol Monkeys and, as a member of a band, damn difficult to play. Buy it, play it, love it!

some said not as good as the previous but they clearly didnt listen; its a direct progression and improvment. rarely do cds have this many good tracks on it but it just keeps on delivering through out. special mention to the awesome Russian Literature. how many somgs do you know about a couple that meet in their favourite section of the library?

I loath people who comment on Paul Smiths accent saying it is 'geordie'. It isn't 'geordie' at all, hes from near Middlesbrough and therefore labeling him in such a way is way of the mark to say the least. However it is a great album never the less.

Buying an album on the strength of having liked just one single from it (Books From Boxes) is always a risk. It doesn't always pay off, but Our Earthly Pleasures is even better and more consistent than the quality of that single suggested. Having not heard the band's first album, I came to this one with no preconceptions or prejudices about what I was going to hear. The first two tracks, Girls Who Play Guitars and Our Velocity are full-on pop-rock, entertaining and energetic. They are followed by Books From Boxes, which is a gem of a track - but in many ways it is what happens from here on that makes this such a great album. Each successive track has either a great melodic hook, fantastic rhythmic interplay between the instruments or genuinely affecting lyrics, and often all three in combination. Standout tracks are hard to identify as the standard is so high, but By The Monument and Parisian Skies are good places to start. Overall, though, this is one of those rare records that you can just put on and play all the way through without a single duff track, where nothing outstays its welcome and you are left wanting more. Its also great to hear intelligent lyrics sung with honesty and directness in the singer's native Geordie accent - no pretending to have come from California here. I could recommend this album to just about anyone.

Ill cut to the chase. This album is not as good as their debut. Heres why:
This album is very obviously a maximo park album, and lyrically Paul has really advanced himself, using the same brand of off-kilter observations on relationships.
Unfortunately, the music side of things is less successful. They seem to have made the classic second album that is "more" than the first, rather than "better". This means "more" instruments playing at the same time, rather than "better" music.It means "more" ideas trying to be expressed in a song, rather than a "better" idea. It means "more" production (ie more fiddling with the sound at rhe mixing desk) rather than "better" production.
In short, maximo have done exactly the same as bloc party (weekend in the city), feeder (comfort in sound), oasis (be here now) and a host other rock pop and indie bands, making their sound a bit more MOR and a bit less spiky, overdriven indie. Now this does pay off on a couple of songs on "our earthly pleasures". "books from boxes" and "our velocity" both really improve with the new sound, and certainly the former is better than anything on a certain trigger.
Unfortunately, on the whole it means that the songs are robbed of the cutting, spikey sounds of the first album which made them catchier and, quite frankly, made them rock harder. Case in point is "a fortnites time". There is a cracking guitar part in the intro, really good. But its buried beneath a plinky-plonky synth line that totally smothers the song and stops it in its tracks.
So, in essence, this is fairly standard second indie album fare. There is good music and good ideas in this album, but they are pushed into the background so that the band can be the next stadium-filling coldplay or snow patrol.

Which is a shame. Watch maximo park drift into the middle of the road...