Product 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'.

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: #1056 in Music
• Released on: 2007-04-02
• Number of discs: 1

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

Customer Reviews

Utterly Brilliant
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!

biting, intelligent, high energy indie rock
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?

Maximo Park - Inaccurate preconceptions
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.