CD REVIEW! Maroon 5 - V

I have to be honest, I found a dislike in Maroon 5 after their last release. It was bland and not up to par with their previous releases. Big yawn. Ok, with that said, their latest offering, V, peaked my interest. The power voice of the band, Adam Levine, is the falsetto-bot who submits to a hit making formula that is getting more rigid with every album. It can be a fantastic formula, or just plain boring. Luckily for them it works for them on V - an almost pop-rocky album with gems like “My Heart Is Open”, “Maps,” “Animals” and “It Was Always You”. Each song is carefully designed for radio. 411mania,com sums the CD up perfectly: "With V, Maroon 5 show that they are capable of producing better pop music than their last album and that's absolutely a relief. While not everything on their fifth album is a hit, the willingness of the band to go in some darker directions and ease up on their obsession with chart hits works in their favour. There's a hint of the pop/rock band that they started off in there and seeing it peek out underneath all the pop hooks makes for an enjoyable album that could have been better if only for a few judicious cuts."