Maroon 5 - It Won't Be Soon Before Long

It Won't Be Soon Before Long is Maroon 5's glossy, groove-heavy second album, pressed here on 180-gram vinyl.

Released in 2007, it arrived five long years after Songs About Jane turned the Los Angeles band into radio regulars. The pressure to follow a multi-platinum debut was real, and Adam Levine and company responded by leaning harder into the sleek funk, disco and blue-eyed soul that had always sat beneath their pop-rock surface.

"Makes Me Wonder" set the tone, a strutting, falsetto-laced single with a bitter streak running through its lyrics, and it became the band's first number one on the Billboard Hot 100. "Wake Up Call" is tense and punchy, all clipped guitars and a tale of romantic betrayal with a dark twist, while "Won't Go Home Without You" is a heart-on-sleeve ballad that wears its love of the Police openly.

Elsewhere, "If I Never See Your Face Again" brings slinky, funk-inflected swagger, and the arrangements stay tight throughout, built for dancing as much as singing along in the car.

It's a snapshot of mid-2000s pop at its most polished, and a reminder of how well Maroon 5 blended rock band chemistry with dance-floor instincts. The heavy vinyl gives those basslines plenty of room to move.