Maroon 5 - 'It Won’t Be Soon Before Long' (Polydor) Released 21/05/07

Californian five piece Maroon 5 are back to funk up the charts – but is their glossy second album lacking a soul? Like them or loathe them, there’s no escaping Maroon 5’s brand of Californian pop-rock. Storming the charts with their debut album ‘Songs About Jane’ (featuring the hit records ‘This Love’ and virtually inescapable ‘She Will Be Loved’), they were one of the surprise hits of 2002.

Five years later we have the bands’ (frankly nonsensically titled) second album ‘It Won’t Be Soon Before Long.’ Picking up from where ‘Songs For Jane’ left off, twelve highly polished tracks are served up in the hope of oiling the dance-floors and burning up the charts. ‘It Won’t Be Soon…’ is dripping with Red Hot Chili Pepper-lite funk and syrupy ballads, but there is a distinct lack of substance behind the pitch-perfect production. Few songs make any real impact before the album moves on to yet another competent but bland song about love.

Opening track ‘If I Never See Your Face Again’ has more than a hint of Michael Jackson about it, as does lead single ‘Makes Me Wonder.’ ‘Won’t Go Home Without You’ is an obvious attempt to replicate the success of ‘She Will Be Loved’. No doubt this handful of ‘stand out’ tracks will be enough to satiate the thirst of their fan base, but for those not already wooed by Maroon 5’s middle of the road charm, it really is hard to care. 

Maroon 5 are clearly competent musicians and singer Adam Levine has a voice as slick as the records’ production. However, being competent does not necessarily make for great records, and ‘It Wont Be Soon Before Long’ is the musical equivalent of mouthwash – it does a job, but once the minty freshness has subsided you are not left wanting more.

That’s not to say that ‘It Won’t Be Soon Before Long’ is an awful album – it simply lacks the personality and memorable hooks to hold your interest. The ambiguous title sums up the feel of the whole album – that this is a collection of songs from a band with not much to say and only a limited number of ways to say it (surely this should be the last time we hear the word ‘girl’ rhymed with ‘world?!). With bands like Orson and Scissor Sisters assailing the charts with there own brand of pop-rock, Maroon 5 really needed to raise their game, but ‘It Won’t Be Soon Before Long’ does little more than deliver more of the same, and doesn’t warrant the attention it will undoubtedly receive as it takes up its’ place in the upper reaches of the album chart.