This week's album: Maximo Park - "Our Earthly Pleasures"

Like a lot of Brits, Maximo Park makes pop that’s doubles as art. The follow-up to the band’s debut “A Certain Trigger,” “Pleasures” has the same dance-y feel as good New Order, but it's not nearly as skeletal. Like pals Field Music (whose "Tones of Town" is top ten of the year), Maximo Park cultivate club beats into fully-bloomed songs as lively and lush as a Beatles or Queen cut. “Our Velocity” is a massive U.K. radio hit, but its album opener “Girls Who Play Guitars” that may be this year’s best pop single. It's so friggin' good. Expect it to open my next mix.