One boring 'Parade'

I used to listen to American Hi-Fi back in high school. I remember how I used to love the upbeat yet somehow melancholy songs on their self-titled album from way back in 2001. I turned up my car's radio every time "Flavor of the Weak" started to come on, and I still pop in that CD from time to time. Their latest release, Hearts on Parade, will most assuredly not be gracing my CD player four years from now. My biggest problem is that the album is simply too dull to listen to -- even for background noise.\nHearts on Parade is a surprising turn from Hi-Fi's original sound, which managed to keep a solid edge to it while still appealing to the feelings of an audience in the throes of adolescence. American Hi-Fi's new CD is full of songs that have absolutely no progression in them; most of them merely go back and forth from a very unadorned verse to an incredibly weak chorus. \nWhat's worse is that the group seems to have abandoned any semblance of retaining their own kind of music. The whole album sounds like a straight Carmen Sandiego-style crime spree of stolen Fountains of Wayne, blink-182, Maroon 5, the Offspring and even Smash Mouth to name a few. This unwarranted stew of other artists only breeds confusion in the listener. It's not even the good kind of confusion that comes from that cleverly blended themes of toughness and weakness, as was an aspect of their original music. This is a kind of confusion in which the listeners wonder what on Earth they are now listening to and how can they turn it off. This is the kind of confusion that ensues when the speakers blare the same dull melody for three minutes straight before switching to another, completely different melody for another three minutes straight. That is, except for the title track "Hearts on Parade," which spans a whole five minutes. \nThe album is not a complete loss. A few gems are hidden away in the middle of the CD, including "The Geeks Get the Girls" and "Where Did We Go Wrong." Some of the songs also spring a few unexpected and curious turns of lyrics, but they're lost somewhere in the redundancy.\nAnd speaking of absolutely boring, the cover and interior art look like all the graphic artists and photographers took the day off during that shoot. It's just a few unappealing shots of the band recording with some different colors thrown in, as though that's never been done before. Be sure to skip the handful of extra concert pictures on the CD as well, but feel free to watch the 12-minute video if there's no paint around that you can watch dry.\nHearts on Parade is no treat for fans of American Hi-Fi, but the new album might find use among fans of mindless repetition who are going on really, really long car rides. Maybe.