Our Earthly Pleasures [Audio CD] Maxïmo Par

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" ("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