Jonas Brothers: Jonas Brothers

Still sitting pretty (or so say all those screaming girls) inside the American Billboard Top 40 after 59 weeks (count them!), the Jonas Brothers land here at last. This eponymous effort is actually their third - if you consider their out-of-print debut It's About Time, currently doing the rounds on the tween market for Dh700 a pop, and their career-making Camp Rock recording for Disney. Quite the overachievement for a pumpkin-pie wholesome band of teenage brothers. For Jonas Brothers is nothing if not a zeitgeist record. Though zeitgeist isn't always an explicable thing, and this is more of an 'if Busted had collaborated with Max Martin to soundtrack a precocious Nickelodeon soap during their questionable Air Hostess period' kind of record. Lead single S.O.S. may succeed on its punk-pop élan. Games bops along to a ska beat that just about skims the right side of rhythmic integrity. But the critique is moot when one emo-flavoured cotton-candy chorus dissolves into another. Skip this and amazon.com their follow-up, A Little Bit Longer. That it is - and much better too. Word from the playground is that it's buzzing with fuzzed-up guitars, as assured as any rock record released this year.
afeshareki@thenational.ae