School's Out for the Naked Brothers' Summer

I barely even made it through their self-titled album last year, though I admired the British Invasion tuneage of "Taxi Cab," and “I Could Be” had a kid awkwardly wishing he was a bird, a fish and Jay-Z. Occasional fake-reggae melodies suggested a less-good version of '70s Europop, and sometimes, I was convinced a grown woman was singing instead of a much younger male. But "Alien Clones" clearly had a seven-year-old-ish kid threatening to feed snakes and spiders to his annoying older brother - charming the first time through, though who knows what alien clones had to do with his brother. Still, the Coldplay-or- whatever attempt in "L.A." was fairly wretched, and lots of the rest just plain dull.

The new I Don’t Want to Go to School, though, strikes me as a leap ahead: The title track’s pop-rocking anti-homework screed may well be this year’s fifth-grade answer to “School’s Out”; “Mystery Girl” glues a New York Dolls title concept to some Little Eva girl-group confection; “I’ve Got a Question” is ace double-bubble white-boy falsetto soul; “Body I Occupy” is discofied mind-body-dualism weirdness with a theme at least partially descended from “Bodies” by the Sex Pistols, minus the latter’s anti-choice sentiments. And though some tracks (stomach-turning nadir "I'll Do Anything" for instance) admittedly sound rather bleh, most of the album holds my interest, from Lennon-style yelps to fake reggae about the sun to fake reggae about math to the part in “Great Trip” where they eat nachos for breakfast and the other part that goes “love is in the air/gel is in their hair,” and the other part still where they win at basketball by 20 points despite being short.

I don’t know - maybe this wouldn’t all seem so off the wall if I actually watched their TV show, or if I put the CD in my computer as instructed and connected to their website for “bonus video footage” and whatnot. Said strategy is a big deal with Jonas Bros albums, too; the biz has to reel in the post-physical-retail-era kiddies somehow, right? But me, I gotta draw the line somewhere. And besides - googling “Naked Brothers” make me uneasy.