After two decades of pop ubiquity, Maroon 5 are digging deeper into the crate than expected on their eighth album. Love Is Like weaves a surprising number of Seventies funk, soul, and R&B samples into their sleek pop sound — Barbara Stant’s 1972 obscurity “You Know I Love You,” Loleatta Holloway’s storming “I Know Where You’re Coming From,” and the Festivals’ forgotten B side “Take Your Time,” to name a few. The selections do more than nod to the group’s blue-eyed-soul roots; they feel like earnest tributes. Yet in trying to smuggle these unruly sounds into a radio-ready Trojan horse, the record feels like searching for buried treasure with gloves on — ambitious, but careful not to get dirt under its fingernails.

The album sails in on the breezy piano hook of “Hideaway,” as Adam Lev

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