Hanson
This Time Around

Winter turns to Spring, and while one may welcome the warm fresh air, the green grass, the blue sky, one can't help but miss the cozy evenings by the fire, sipping hot chocolate, looking out into the white snow.

It's with similarly mixed emotions that I tell you that boy-heroes Hanson have returned with a sophomore album, This Time Around

Well, this time around, the boys are older, and perhaps wiser. Isaac, the principal songwriter and multi-instrumentalist is now a man at 20, and Taylor is almost a man at 17. Sweet little Zach is a tidy 14.

If you've ever read a Hanson interview, you know little Zach is a scamp, a real cut up. He's also the only one who kept his hair long. That's clearly why This Time Around is such a playful album. Songs like "You Never Know" and "In the City" bounce around my speakers and make me want to dance with the abandon of a school boy.

Little Zach's drumming is tight. There's some muscle in those tan arms! You can hear it with each concentrated slap of the skins.

Taylor, or Tay, as real fans call him, turns in a virtuoso performance on the keyboards. His fingers must be uncannily thin, but like little Zach's arms, powerful in their own right.

Tay's voice is somewhere in that delightful limbo that rests between childhood and adulthood. On "You Never Know," he is truly singing from the back of his throat You can almost hear his taut jaw straining, stretching wide open, his tonsils dangling and dancing from the tuneful air rushing out of his lungs.

"Runaway Run" is a foot tapper, but upon dissection, the lyrics reveal a dour tale of a young runaway boy. I give credit to the boys for tackling such a serious issue, but the notion of a young boy, perhaps Tay, wandering the city streets alone, penniless and bedless, is kind of distressing.

The best song on the album is "If Only," which echoes my bittersweet relationship with this album.

The liner notes don't indicate who penned these lyrics, but my guess is that it's the result of some late-night collaboration between little Zach and Tay, perhaps over some milk and cookies in the kitchen, or scribbled out by flashlight under the covers, unbeknownst to their parents, who are fast asleep.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the photos on the jacket of the CD. In one, little Zach is nothing more than a blur in the background. Luckily, Tay is in full focus. Another shows Tay crouched on his knees, like a tiger, ready to spring into action.

When I wrote a review for Hanson's first album, Middle of Nowhere, I anointed Tay the most talented member. After listening to This Time Around, I think I've been swept into the lair of the little drummer boy I call Zachdom.

— Pirate Prentice, President South American Man-Boy Association (SAMBA)