On Our Earthly Pleasures, Maxïmo Park aims for universality, as well as a more aggressive sound.

Paul Smith, lead singer of Newcastle's garage-wavers Maxïmo Park, didn't want to be a frontman. Despite a voice and a way with lyrics that suggest otherwise, the arresting Englishman felt at one time that he had nothing in particular to say. He therefore avoided the limelight, toiling away in an instrumental band before he was discovered in 2004 by the girlfriend of Maxïmo drummer Tom English, who heard him singing along to Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" in a local pub. This bears repeating not only because it's a great story, but also because now, Smith has plenty to say. Plenty.

On his BlackBerry from a Toronto tour stop, Smith burns up an hour of tape with very little prodding. He's eager and serviceable in the most charming way, and passionate about Maxïmo's music in that cocky-meets-awed manner particular to British rock bands.

"So far, so good on this tour," Smith says in a guileless Geordie accent. "We're playing new songs. Canadian audiences are being treated to new songs by Maxïmo Park. Last night in Montreal, you could see people really responding to us. At the end of each show, there's been a really huge round of applause and hands in the air. It's great when they don't know you live, because you can see the crowd sizing you up.…You come off-stage exhausted. We don't do this for an easy ride. We want to show people how much we care about our music and the songs that we write."

It's refreshing to hear a singer so concerned with his audience's reaction, forgoing the "We do what we do and we hope people like it" line proffered by so many acts. Indeed, the chatty songsmith seems obsessed with universality and connection to his listeners, keeping his lyrics to Maxïmo's self-described "Smiths by way of Smashing Pumpkins" songs open-ended enough to connect with a wide variety of audiences.

"My entry into the band was lyrics," says Smith, who joined English, guitarist Duncan Lloyd, bassist Archis Tiku, and keyboardist Lukas Wooller after much cajoling three years ago. "They gave me the songs and said, 'Change the lyrics, keep them the same, do what you like.' And so I tried to make it very personal, but I'm also aware that one of the worst aspects of confessional songwriting is when you get like this guy or a girl telling you things that only mean something to them. You think, 'That was a good story, but what do I do with it?'"

Maxïmo Park's critically adored debut, A Certain Trigger won plaudits for its earnest hooks and pop craftsmanship, with listeners especially embracing the beautiful shoegazer "Acrobat", a pleading and fragile number lit up by glittering keys and whisper-quiet guitars.

This year's sophomore effort, Our Earthly Pleasures, possesses nothing so unassuming or intentionally gorgeous; from the opening notes of the chunky, more-XTC-than-XTC opener "Girls Who Play Guitars", it's clear that the group is after a more immediate and aggressive sound. Tiku and Lloyd's spiky guitar interplay will do little to quell the comparisons to Maxïmo contemporaries like Franz Ferdinand or the Futureheads, but a keen ear will hear that Smith is less art-school fop, more true outsider. In other words, even for a cool guy, Smith will never be cool.

But he doesn't seem concerned with his vocal delivery so much as with that all important message he thinks a frontman should impart. Earthly Pleasures overflows with calls to value the present and savour the moment, no matter where you find yourself.

"I enjoy experience," says Smith, who admits that he still has difficulty living in the here and now. "I enjoy the fact of doing something or going somewhere. That's what [Earthly Pleasures track] 'Our Velocity' was about: don't ask too many questions. Time is gonna drag you through whatever happens. It's irrelevant, and indisputable, and ever-changing. People are always saying, 'I'm gonna do this in the next six months–get a better girlfriend, or a better job.' In the back of my mind, I'm always thinking that there's something better for me out there."

But as Smith continues, one gets the sense that's he's constantly on the hunt for new experiences, with little time for things that might bring him down. These things include purists pissed off that his rock band is signed to electronica label Warp, punters who make fun of his "indie-rock comb-over", or the U.K.'s obsession with bands he doesn't think much of. ("I haven't heard much of the Libertines," he says, "but I don't get how a whole movement could be attached to something so flimsy.") In the end, Smith is obviously a man enamoured with indulging in everything life has to offer–maybe a little too enamoured.

"The danger comes when you're unquestioning about your experiences," says the singer. "That's the problem–you know when you get in a band, you get free drinks every night, girls who normally wouldn't like you like you, and it's easy to get caught up in it. There has to be a way to step out of it."

His way of doing that on this day is to explore Toronto and hunt for Joni Mitchell records. Beyond that, though, Smith sounds like a man who won't be giving up earthly (and more sinister) pleasures for the minor thrill of discovering a vinyl copy of The Hissing of Summer Lawns in a used-record shop. The way he sees it, he's almost obliged to embrace his inner hedonist.

"That's where all my lyrics come from," he says slyly. "The narrator is complicit."

Maxïmo Park plays Richard's on Richards on Monday (July 23).