Track Listing

1. Girls Who Play Guitars
2. Our Velocity
3. Books From Boxes
4. Russian Literature
5. Karaoke Plays
6. Your Urge
7. Unshockable
8. By The Monument
9. Nosebleed
10. Fortnight's Time
11. Sandblasted And Set Free
12. Parisian Skies

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7420 in Music
• Released on: 2007-04-02
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Dimensions: .23 pounds

Amazon.co.uk Review
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

CD Description
'Our Earthly Pleasures' is the second album from Geordie new-wavers Maximo Park, and is the follow up to their impressive debut album, 'A Certain Trigger'. A bigger, louder and more expansive record than their debut, here we find the band in a more reflective mood, with singer Paul Smith's plaintive and heartfelt lyrics being backed by a band not afraid to experiment with their sound. Includes the single 'Our Velocity'.

Customer Reviews

Don't suppress your urge...
This is simply the most listen-to-able album this year. I can happily listen to it on repeat over and over... I haven't been able to do that with an album for some time!

If you liked their previous album, A Certain Trigger, you will adore this. Lots of catchy, yet not nauseous, tunes and some truly beautiful lyrical work...

A must-buy of 2007, the soundtrack of your summer.

A Wonderful Surpise
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.

Got a slating in NME but is actually really good
This is a great second album, NME slated it, but it is really very good.
I guess it is just easier to slate something than praise it. The park have managed to follow up their last album wit something cool and classy, but that just doesn't sell magazines.