Yawn. I’m sorry, you’ll have to excuse me; I just got done listening to the first few songs of The Hang Ups' latest album, cleverly named The Hang Ups.

Starting out with "It’s All True", a Gin Blossoms imitation minus the Kool-Aid flavor, then merging into a few Beatles wannabes, The Hang Ups has the feel of a cover band who has changed the lyrics to popular songs, kept the basic melody, but was not quite able to sound out exactly the right notes.

Then came "Like It Used to Be". The solo hurt. In fact, I am not quite sure if that was a drum or guitar solo or perhaps the Hammond organ they boast. That is how special it was.

At one point during the song "Annie Walks", I thought my CD player was beginning to perform slow, painful surgery on the disc. The lyrics were intentionally heartbreaking, but I cannot imagine that they intended the notes to be so tragic as well. The chords and melodies were … Well, let’s just say that they did not mesh well together. Though this wasn’t the only ear screeching notes I encountered while listening, it was by far the most distressing.

As the album progressed, I found that there were songs that, taken alone and not with the entire CD, could possibly satisfy my need to hear a toe tappin’, would-have-been-a-hit-in-the-'60s, folk song. "It seems like if we were around like 20 years ago, we'd be huge," lead singer and guitarist Brian Tighe said in a past interview. Well, I’m sorry Brian, but it’s just not 20 years ago.

If you cannot yet figure it out, I was not enjoying the album. I did, however, find myself uncontrollably tapping out the beat to "Wildflowers". And then I stopped cold. Did I just find a beat in one of these songs? And then it continued on. "Blue Residence" followed as yet another decent, almost intriguing, Pete Yorn-ish tune. Unfortunately for the strictly instrument players in the band, I would have to say that they sound best in "You’ve Come Home", a song with barely any instrumental aspects. And as the last song played, I had an epiphany about this album: they should cut the first nine songs, keep the last four and use them as inspiration to write a few more like them.

I read several reviews on The Hang Ups' previous three albums and they were all positive, so maybe I’ll have to check some of them out. But as for The Hang Ups, I’ll only take it with a side of cheese to counteract the whine.

www.HangUpsMusic.com