American Hi-Fi: Hearts On Parade : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

After bashing drums for Nineties alt-rockers Letters to Cleo and Veruca Salt, Stacy Jones reinvented himself as an expert bandleader wallowing in neopunk's teenage wasteland. Since scoring a hit with 2001's "Flavor of the Weak," the American Hi-Fi singer-guitarist has turned out superbright rock long on snotty pop-culture references, processed sneers and the kind of dating melodrama that post-collegians are really too old for. Hearts on Parade, Hi-Fi's third album, pushes this formula to the point of annoyance, imagining a lame paradise where "The Geeks Get the Girls" and wishing for "Something Real" on an everything-sucks ballad Good Charlotte wouldn't touch. "The Everlasting Fall" and "Highs and Lows" work up a relaxed Fountains of Wayne-style sunniness, but most of Parade's flavors are pretty weak.