Good Charlotte - The Chronicles Of Life And Dea CDs • Vinyl Records • LPs • Music Albums

rockers such as "S.O.S." and "Walk Away (Maybe)" pack greater emotional wallop than Good Charlotte's previous bubblegum punk, the Madden twins and Co. junk up several songs with unnecessary flourishes such as the string parts on "Predictable" or the New Order-ish synths on "Ghost of You." Somewhere underneath all the slick production, a handful of truly great gut-punch melodies fight their way to the surface. It's a shame that Good Charlotte have made it so easy to ignore those hooks and focus on questions such as "Did they really need to open the record with a two-minute choral number that sounds like it came from the score to Edward Scissorhands?"

All of which compounds the usual problem Good Charlotte face: asinine lyrics. The band that wrote the unforgivably dumb line "Girls don't like boys/Girls like cars and money" has outdone even its worst with the painful "I Just Wanna Live" -- an agonizing attempt at rap rock. Sample rhyme: "Talkin' on the phone/Got an interview with the Rolling Stone/They're sayin', 'Now you're rich and now you're famous/Fake-ass girls all know your name.' " Hey, guys, leave us out of it

This album comes in two versions. One is red, and one is dark red, and one cut on each is different. Not since the days of New Coke has a product this utterly imaginary been waved at the public. Thankfully, both albums contain the same infectious post-grunge fun-rock that made Good Charlotte's name in 2000.