Released on 20/05/07
Label: A&M/Octone

In almost every meaningful sense, Maroon 5 are a throwback. The LA band were given that most uncommon of 21st century breaks - the chance to tour their first album into a worldwide hit over a period of years, rather than weeks - and this follow-up is a record cut free from commerciality's constraints, drifting along pop's converging currents, happy to end up wherever the mood takes it.

Just as their debut, "Songs About Jane", told a story through its song sequence, so this follow-up arrives as a fully formed idea, a collection of thematically linked songs that dig away at the core subject (a dysfunctional relationship on the edge of collapse, which neither lover can bring themselves to end). Consequently, despite some fabulous tunes and a breathtakingly vivid production brokered piecemeal by a team including Mike Elizondo, Mark "Spike" Stent, Mark Endert and the band, this is a record that needs a few plays.

At first, the clashing contrasts threaten to confuse. The first single, "Makes Me Wonder", is a glammed-up disco stomp worthy of the Scissor Sisters; "Wont Go Home Without You"s verse is "Every Breath You Take", just as the last album's "Must Get Out" was "With Or Without You"; throughout there are echoes of Prince and Maroon 5's one true contemporary kindred spirit, John Mayer (most notably on "Nothing Lasts Forever", which has a Mayer-style bridge and chord structure which emphasises those aspects of Adam Levine's occasionally reedy voice which most resemble Mayer's).

Initially the overload jars slightly, and fans of the first album may at first find this one less direct. But by the third time through, the parts have coalesced into a satisfyingly rounded whole. "It Won't Be Soon Before Long"'s failure to tread an obvious path forward from the multi-million-selling debut becomes its greatest strength. This is an album of terrific songs, delivered with care, precision and panache.

Its least successful moments still work: "Kiwi", the most ordinary piece of songwriting here, is kicked into gear by a preposterous Van Halen-meets-Napalm Death coda. Most songs - "Goodnight Goodnight", "Can't Stop", "Won't Go Home Without You", "Little Of Your Time" and the ferociously driven funk-rock opener, "If I Never See Your Face Again" - have choruses and hooks to burn. They would all make excellent singles.

Conventional critical wisdom has decreed that Maroon 5 are the new Spin Doctors, a grey distillation of the parts of rock that you don't want to listen to. Well, not for the first time, conventional wisdom is wrong. Maroon 5 are the new Police, the new U2: a wildly exciting rock band who understand how to make great pop music that works everywhere from the bedroom and the iPod to the radio and the stadium. They're already superb; and this record suggests that they've barely got started.

    by Angus Batey