‘This Is Us’

‘This Is Us’

Backstreet Boys (Jive Records)

Grade: D

The newest CD from the Backstreet Boys features a number of uptempo, club-sounding songs — but the weak effort from this quartet won’t have you running to the dance floor.

“This Is Us,” the group’s seventh studio album, is full of boring, uneventful tracks — though hitmaking producers such as RedOne, T-Pain, Jim Jonsin and Ryan Tedder help out.

What may be most disappointing is that Swedish producer Max Martin — who helmed classic grooves for the boy band such as “I Want it That Way” and “Everybody [Backstreet’s Back]” — fails to present anything as addictive on “This Is Us.”

“Straight Through My Heart,” the lead single, is too average as is “She’s a Dream,” a poorly written love tale. The worst is “PDA,” where the boys claim they will be “kissing, touching with my hands all over your booty” at Starbucks, the club, restaurant, grocery store, movies and beach. Stop. Please. Thank you.

At times, the production of the songs proves to be too powerful — pushing the boys to the background, especially on the Britney Spears-sounding “Masquerade.”

The group should have recorded more songs with Claude Kelly, Soulshock and Karlin. Those producers work on “Bye Bye Love” and “If I Knew Then,” the only standouts on the dragging “This Is Us.”

— Mesfin Fekadu, Associated Press

‘Revolution’

Miranda Lambert

(Columbia Nashville)

Grade: A

“I ain’t the kind you take home to mama,” Miranda Lambert warns on “Heart Like Mine.”

With her third album, the 25-year-old Texas native embellishes her image as a no-nonsense firebrand who can give as good as she gets from any guy. And she pulls it off with more bite and conviction than just about any other young female in mainstream Nashville.

That’s evident from the get-go with “White Liar” and “Only Prettier,” and is bolstered later with scorchingly rocked-up versions of Buddy Miller’s “Somewhere Trouble Don’t Go” and John Prine’s “That’s the Way the World Goes ’Round.”

Lambert does take the tough-chick attitude too far with the idiotic “Time to Get a Gun,” continuing her fascination with firearms (she really does pack heat).

But it’s not all one-dimensional, as the singer balances “Revolution” with a sensitive side: Moving and well-drawn numbers like “Dead Flowers,” “Me and Your Cigarettes,” and “The House That Built Me” get well beyond the bravado.

— Nick Cristiano, Philadelphia Inquirer

‘There Is No Enemy’

Built to Spill (Warner Bros.)

Grade: B-

It may be that “There Is No Enemy,” but Built to Spill’s latest album has such a melancholy vibe, there may as well be.

Decidedly darker than 2006’s “You In Reverse,” the Boise quintet tones down its trademark guitar-driven rock on its seventh CD. “Enemy” is still a rock record, but the tempos are taken down a touch to carry frontman Doug Martsch’s musings on mortality and the meaning of life.

He opens “Done” with “Loneliness is getting hard to perceive/Seems it never comes or it never leaves,” and closes with a refrain of “It’s already done, it’s already done.”

“It doesn’t matter if you’re good or smart,” he sings on “Things Fall Apart,” a languid tune punctuated by a lone happy horn.

But all is not hopeless. Guitarists Brett Netson and Jim Roth, bassist Brett Nelson and drummer Scott Plouf get upbeat on “Good of Boredom” as Martsch sings, “Most of my dreams have come true.” On “Nowhere Lullaby,” a slow track rich with reverb, he concludes “everyone gets through the night and everyone wakes up all right.”

He takes the sentiment further on the album’s cheeriest track, “Planting Seeds”: “We can make it if we try/If we don’t it’s still all right/Because your mind is still alive.”

“There Is No Enemy,” but according to Built to Spill, there’s still plenty to think about.

— Sandy Cohen, Associated Press

‘The Boy Who Knew Too Much’

Mika (Casablanca)

Grade: B

No need to add any sweetener to your morning coffee while listening to Mika. He’ll provide all the sugar you need, and then some.

The Beirut-born, London-based pop star, who made himself known with the 2007 hit “Grace Kelly,” continues on his candy-colored way on his follow-up to his aptly titled “Life in Cartoon Motion.”

“Who gives a damn about the family you come from, you’ll give it up when you’re young and you want some!” he enthuses on the ebullient opener, “We Are Golden,” which, typically, embeds serious thoughts about coming-of-age identity issues in irresistible hooks.

As with his debut, the transparent influences are Queen and Elton John.

And throughout, Mika — who was born Michael Penniman, and shares a surname (and a flamboyance) with Little Richard — is as glammy as he wants to be, with occasional quiet moments at the piano like “By the Time” to catch his breath. And it’s no wonder he needs to: Bouncing around on Mika’s aural trampoline for a full album is an exhausting experience.

— Dan DeLuca, Philadelphia Inquirer