Jonas Brothers

Forty weeks after its million-selling US release, the Jonas Brothers second album is finally to be released in the UK, on the eve of a support slot with Avril Lavigne. The three brothers Nick, Kevin and Joe, have been living the dream ever since the release of their first US single in 2005, receiving significant boosts through MTV and Radio Disney, particularly in the wake of their cover of The Year 3000. The Jonas Brothers are, however, a far more saccharine affair than Busted, and this album is decidedly hit-and-miss.

Their energetic brand of pop-punk, just about bearable for a track, quickly pales over the course of the album. S.O.S. and Hold On have a degree of freshness, but Just the Way We Roll is an overcooked pudding of reheated rock clichés. There's also an embarrassing ballad (Hello Beautiful) and a horribly manipulative lighter-waving (or should that be mobile-phone-waving?) attempt at a stadium-pleaser called When You Look Me in Eyes. The wheedling, overblown vocalizing and antiseptic production grates throughout, and there is little evidence of the bands' much-vaunted Christianity in these unoriginal boy-meets-girl songs. Perhaps that's just as well though, because when they do attempt a more ambitious lyric, on Hollywood it is, frankly, rubbish.

Despite, or perhaps because of these shortcomings (to say nothing of all the accompanying hype), the album is likely to soon be torturing parents up and down the land. Depending upon which side of the equation you are on, that might considered a good thing.