Maximo Park -- Our Earthly Pleasures

Well the long awaited Maximo Park album "Our Earthly Pleasures" leaked this week. Coming from a band that released what i considered to be the best album of 2005 as well as a great album consisting of "Missing Songs." With this being said hope and expectation were both very high for this release. The earlier leaked single "Our Velocity" continued to raise excitement. The song features the same energy and strength of "A Certain Trigger." Sadly though this song apparently consumed most of the energy of the full album. This by no mean implies that the album is a failure. There are plenty of great Maximo tracks on the album, there just isn't the same overall tone as the earlier releases. The excuse of musical growth can be used, but it seems only apparent on about half of the album. In reality if another band released this album I might be praising them, but having known their genius there is a bit of a let down. A slow song like "Books from Boxes" still has great sound and stellar vocals. Maximo is known for there seemingly straightforward lyrical approach. This apparently went haywire at one point during the writing/recording process when the lyrics to a chorus were written as "five times five equals twenty-five, don't you know your times tables by now." A clear standout is "The Unshockable" with it's unique musicality. A great combination of distortion and NES styled dramatic keyboard. Vocals are exactly what they should be by the time the chorus hits. Overall the record is still a definite buy...plus when it finally comes out us Statesmen will be blessed with two more songs. Fingers crossed for cocaine and coffee filled sounds from the newbies. Songs of interest: Our Velocity. Books from Boxes, Girls Who Play Guitars, The Unshockable