There's something about the Blake Babies' music that's as fresh as a whiff of just-mown hay at eight o'clock on a summer's morning. The dew is not yet dry on this Boston band's back; the trio's music is chock-full of a sense that the days to come will be rife with adventure and hope. Sunburn, the band's second record, exudes youthfulness and charm, a gaiety of spirit that despite, or perhaps because of, its occasional lapses into amateurishness, is all but irresistible.

The Blakes have a pure enthusiasm for simple pop melody, which they then prop up on an insecure but infectious hard-rock bottom and pump full of the sweet, dueling harmonies of bassist Juliana Hatfield and guitarist John Strohm (drummer Freda Boner doesn't sing, but she nonetheless adds weight to the decidedly female perspective of the band's work). Not since the Scottish pop outfit Altered Images injected the British punk scene with a bizarre spurt of earnest babyishness has a band sounded quite this innocent.

Much of this innocence can be directly attributed to the sweet resonance of Hatfield's girlish voice. Hatfield's concerns are those of many modern young women: At the age of twenty-three, she has yet to lose hope in humanity, and her strength of mind is heartening. For instance, on "I'm Not Your Mother," she moves out of her boyfriend's house with a lofty sneer: "I'm not your babysitter; I ain't no goddamn foster home!" On "Look Away," she's just as cutting: "I get along without you when you look away," she trills happily. But Hatfield's no bitch. When she breathlessly sings about being in full crush on the album's best song, "Out There," she is convincingly vulnerable – appealing, strong and shy all at once.

Sunburn is more uneven than the band's 1989 debut album, Earwig. The highlights on it are much better than anything on the earlier album, but the entire second side (with the exception of the marvelous song "Train," which, weirdly, quotes from both Presley's "Mystery Train" and Modern English's "I Melt With You") wanders along a meandering path. Oddest of all, one standout cut barely features Hatfield at all. "Girl in a Box," written and sung by guitarist John Strohm, is an eerie, sophisticated number that explores domestic violence against women. The song implies that the Blake Babies have a vast, secret well of talent and insight that's yet to be explored. No wonder they're so optimistic about life. (RS 596)

GINA ARNOLD