The highly anticipated follow-up to the New Jersey siblings’ 2006 debut—which featured the TRL hit “Mandy”—The Jonas Brothers is sure to make good on the band’s goal: It’s a high-energy pop-punk disc overflowing with insanely catchy hooks, muscular guitar fuzz and mature songwriting that reveals just how much growing up the boys have done since we last heard from them. Talk about something for everyone: In “S.O.S.” they attack a fierce dance-rock groove, while in “Hello Beautiful” they go soulful and acoustic. “Games” rides a laidback reggae groove the Police would envy, then switches gears into a zippy Ramones-style rave-up. “Hollywood” pairs a tricky funk beat with divebombing guitar lines,” and “When You Look Me in the Eyes” builds to a power-ballad crescendo. In “Goodnight and Goodbye,” the album’s most ambitious cut, they combine Warped Tour-style punk with musical-theatre trimmings inspired by Nick’s years on Broadway in Les Misérables and Beauty and the Beast. Throughout the album, the boys reflect on a variety of emotional hardships without losing their grip on the positive vibe that underpins all their music. Eager to provide their quickly expanding fanbase with new music, the band entered L.A.’s Seedy Underbelly studio in February with producer John Fields, whose work on Switchfoot’s The Beautiful Letdown had made the boys huge fans of his. “John lives rock music,” Joe says of the producer, who’s also worked with Rooney and Pink. “We always thought it would be so cool to work with him.”  They worked quickly, recording the album from beginning to end in a mere 21 days, a feat they accomplished in part because they knew the material so well: Where their debut featured work by a handful of professional songwriters, The Jonas Brothers only contains songs penned by the Jonas Brothers themselves, with occasional assists by pals like Bleu (“That’s Just the Way We Roll”), P.J. Bianco (“When You Look Me in the Eyes”) and the boys’ own backing band (“Games”). “As brothers, we just know how to work together,” Nick explains. 

© 2007 Hollywood Records