The Presidents Of The United States Of America: Chris Ballew, Dave Dederer, Jason Finn.

Additional personnel includes: Mark Sandman.

Producers: Chris Ballew, Dave Dederer, Jason Finn.

Recorded at Bad Animals and Studio Litho, Seattle, Washington.

The Presidents' hugely-successful 1995 debut established them as practitioners of a loose-limbed, goofy pop sound, marked by dirty, overdriven guitar and absurd lyrics. On their second offering, the ungrungiest boys in all of Seattle keep the ball rolling, with a new batch of twitchy, manic pop tunes to make you giggle and groove.

Singer Chris Ballew relates bizarre, Zappa-esque tales about bugs, frogs and Tiki gods over the angular, bouncy rhythms of Dave Dederer and Jason Finn. The trio's skewed power-pop is arch enough to keep things interesting, but melodic enough to provide these twisted ditties with a tasty sugar-coating that keeps things accessible. Highlights include the geological horror story "Volcano" and the instrument-endorsement satire "Toob Amplifier." Rest assured, The Presidents are the same trio of sick puppies you knew and loved on their last album.

Considering the speed that their second album was delivered, the Presidents of the United States of America must have known their time in the spotlight was brief. Released exactly a year after "Lump" stormed the charts, POTUSA 2 is just like the group's debut except not as consistently engaging. A few songs have strong hooks to rival those on the debut -- particularly the two-chord rampage of "Mach 5" -- but about half of the album sounds too labored and considered, especially the hyped-up They Might Be Giants homage "Volcano." So, The Presidents of the United States 2 delivers everything that the second album from a one-hit wonder should do: it has a couple of pretty good singles intermixed with a bunch of tolerable filler that plays better as nostalgia than it did when it was currently released. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine