Sophomore Trump
Hanson's Solid Second Effort Has Heart To Go With Its Hooks

When these precocious siblings broke out in 1997 with their hyper-infectious smash "MMMBop" and the fluffy yet unexpectedly sophisticated album Middle of Nowhere, it was still possible to dismiss them as a photogenic flash-in-the-pan. It's taken the emotional and artistic bankruptcy of the aggressively inconsequential kid-pop acts that have followed to appreciate the genuineness of Hanson's buoyant bubble-soul, whose old-school integrity now seems almost quaint compared to the coldhearted glitz of the Britney/Backstreet bunch.

The honest craft and humanity of This Time Around -- Middle of Nowhere's official follow-up, not counting the obligatory live disc, Christmas album and early-material reissue that have appeared in the interim -- demonstrates the trio's deep spiritual ties to a vibrant pop tradition that peaked decades before they began making music. While the 13-song collection isn't likely to make anyone confuse Hanson with Yo La Tengo, pushing the envelope isn't the point here. At their most inspired, they deliver their hook-intensive tunes with a sense of uncontrived joy and limitless possibility that marks them as a great rock 'n' roll band.

The album's initial single, "If Only," offers a giddy melodic rush that's every bit as uplifting as "MMMBop," and the similarly surging "Runaway Run" and "You Never Know" aren't far behind, rocking out with an urgency that ostensibly hipper indie-power-popsters might do well to heed. Elsewhere, the heartbreak and yearning of the threesome's better ballads -- "Save Me," "Love Song" and the convincingly gospelly "A Song To Sine" -- are recognizable as actual emotions rather than melodramatic conceits. The instrumental tracks are, for the most part, organically soulful, while middle brother Taylor Hanson remains an instinctively soulful singer, puberty be damned.

Not surprisingly, This Time Around doesn't maintain those dizzy heights all the way through. But neither does it ever stoop to the facile cynicism of Hanson's smarmy machine-teen contemporaries. Even in the album's lesser moments, e.g. the Latin/scratch/rap misfire "Can't Stop," the Hansons very nearly get by on the strength of their sincerity. One can only hope that America's preteen ears haven't already been so corrupted by a steady diet of nothing that Hanson will sound like toiling old fogeys.

--Scott Schinder

(rated the album with 3.5 stars)