Signs were not good for the second Maximo Park album. Following on from the success of debut A Certain Trigger, members started ringing alarm bells by saying things like "people will see more of what we’re capable of as musicians" when discussing their new songs.
Then Maximo Park hired Gil Norton as a producer; a risky move since he's overseen records by both The Pixies (a good thing) and Feeder (very obviously not a good thing). And then there was the title of the new Maximo Park album – Our Earthly Pleasures. Other bands have spent their entire careers trying and failing to come up with an album title as overbearingly pretentious as that, let alone coupled it with a sleeve that looks like it was stolen from a Gap photoshoot that was binned for being too miserable. Seriously, Maximo Park may as well have just called Our Earthly Pleasures WE ARE A SERIOUS BAND and have done with it. But is Our Earthly Pleasures by Maximo Park any good? Let's find out…
For all the record sales and award nominations that Maximo Park picked up for their first album A Certain Trigger, it never really gave the band an identity. Since it was released in the middle of a swathe of indie albums by new bands like Bloc Party and Kaiser Chiefs, the only thing that stopped Maximo Park drowning the crowd completely was the singer's funny hair. That's all set to change with Our Earthly Pleasures, though, since Maximo Park decided to release it, um, a couple of weeks after albums by Bloc Party and Kaiser Chiefs. Oh…
And like Bloc Party and Kaiser Chiefs, Our Earthly Pleasures by Maximo Park is an evolution of sorts. While Bloc Party ramped up the misery for A Weekend in The City and Kaiser Chiefs continued their quest to become the new Shed Seven, Maximo Park have their eyes firmly set on radio stations and the mainstream – even if it does take a couple of songs for them to get round to telling you this.
With the first two songs on Our Earthly Pleasures – Girls Who Play Guitars and recent single Our Velocity – Maximo Park make out like nothing has changed. While you'll already be aware of the latter's laser-sighted synthy thrash, it's the former that really excites. It's energetic, catchy, swamped in a low-frequency buzz and, yes, spiky, and comes complete with the line "The path to excess leads to boredom," a lesson that Maximo Park haven't seemed to understood themselves at times.
Because, for all the gold-plated pop tunes on Our Earthly Pleasure – and there are a lot, from the opening double-header to the wonderful A Fortnight's Time and its Won't Get Fooled Again keyboard and bizarre "five times five equals 25/ don't you know your times tables by now?" seduction technique – the dark stench of maturity is never too far away. Russian Literature – good to see the 'rubbish titles' theme continuing into song names, huh? – is Maximo Park's first shot at a proper anthem, and is possibly their most successful attempt, even if singer Paul Smith does seem determined to slot a Billy Idol impression in right at the end.
Maximo Park's less well-applied efforts to create anthems pepper Our Earthly Pleasures and ultimately detract from the listening experience. If it weren't for all the regional accents on the go, the chorus to Karaoke Plays would sound identical to Nickelback, while By The Monument features that most soul-sapping of musical interludes – the Baywatch piano tinkle. Unforgivable, really.
Had Maximo Park eased up their efforts to make a technically successfully album a little and concentrated more on just being humans, Our Earthly Pleasures would have been a stellar album. As it stands, it's just half a brilliant album. Catch them now before they turn completely into Feeder.