Texas

Jump On Board BMG. CD/DL/LP

Or, you could always catch the next train.

With its chorus and bridge audibly in hock to George McCrae’s evergreen great Rock Your Baby, Jump On Board’s opener Let’s Work It Out is about as good as Texas’s ninth studio album gets. Alas, it’s largely diminishing returns from there on in, as songwriters Sharleen Spiteri and Johnny McElhone decline outside help this time around and only rarely alight on something that doesn’t feel formulaic. Though the No Doubt-like For Everything has a pleasing immediacy and Spiteri’s spirited vocal develops into something that’s clearly heartfelt, Can’t Control puts a Morriconeesque “Ay-ee ay-ee ah!” where one really shouldn’t be, Won’t Let You Down is the poor relation of The Pretenders’ I’ll Stand By You, and a number of these rather banally-titled songs simply fizzle out. Listening in, you feel goldfishlike; swimming in oh-sofamiliar circles and bound to forget all that has assailed you instantly.