Completed over the span of three years and featuring some of his oldest songs, Paul Smith's Diagrams calls to mind the best of his solo career and his time with Maximo Park. Co-produced by Smith's longtime friend Andrew Hodson of Warm Digits -- whose influence can be heard on the deceptively breezy Motorik of "Critical Mass" -- the album's viewpoint is timely despite its lengthy creative process. Smith has been a politically minded songwriter since Maximo Park's earliest days, and his zeal for calling out injustice hasn't faded. When he tackles the paranoia and hypocrisy of the late 2010s on "The Public Eye" or asks for tolerance on "Around and Around," it feels more considered and more genuine than the work of many acts who gained a social conscience after Brexit and Trump. Smith's enduring skill at connecting history to current events extends to the sense of time and place imbued in Diagrams' other songs. On "Syrian Plains," he sings "So Roman/In how we destroy everything we touch" over a grinding riff; "Lake Burley Griffin" is a hypnotic homage to the love between Walter Burley Griffin and his wife Marion Mahony Griffin, the American architects who designed the Australian capital city of Canberra. Given his state of mind on Diagrams, it's not surprising that much of the album focuses on the quieter side of Smith's music, particularly on the introspective "Hollywood Hills" and "The Beauty Contest," the latter of which features spectral backing vocals from folk singer Marry Waterson. Whenever it feels like the album might be getting too quiet, Smith delivers a song that evokes some of his band's fizzy energy. "Silver Rabbit" boasts some surprisingly ferocious guitar solos, while "Head for Figures" and "John" trade in the chiming, hyper-literate flirtation at which Maximo Park excel. No matter who he works with, Smith is a thoughtful and thought-provoking artist, and Diagrams features some of his finest songs in a while. ~ Heather Phares, Rovi

1		The Public Eye
2		Around and Around
3		Silver Rabbit
4		Lake Burley Griffin
5		Syrian Plains
6		John
7		The Beauty Contest
8		Hollywood Hills
9		Head for Figures
10		Critical Mass
11		Your Orbit

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