Album: Maximo Park

Bringing in Gil Norton to oversee their second album proves decisive for Maximo Park, the Pixies/Foo Fighters producer instilling a swagger that was previously lacking. Singer/lyricist Paul Smith has grown in confidence, too, successfully incorporating terms that would normally kill any poetic urge, such as "paradigm", and the phrase "codify your utterance, communicate your need", with which he skewers the futility of nightlife in "Your Urge". His more solitary, bookish inclinations are indicated by "Our Velocity", "Books From Boxes" and "Russian Literature", a trilogy of songs bridging the gap between fiction and life: as he admits, "I buy books I never read/And then I tell you some more about Me!". His band's facility with a range of styles - from the jangly guitar arpeggios of "Books From Boxes" to the echoes of Emerson, Lake & Palmer in the keyboard rocker "A Fortnight's Time" - leaves their musical personality somewhat amorphous, but Smith's unabashed Geordie delivery furnishes ample compensation.

DOWNLOAD THIS: 'Girls Who Play Guitars', 'Our Velocity', 'Books From Boxes', 'Your Urge'