Hopeless Romantic is
the Bouncing Souls' fourth studio album, and it maintains the group's standard of catchy, party-ready punk-pop. The more serious moments can come off as a bit emotionally underdeveloped, partly because of the band's penchant for dealing with problems using jokey, ironic detachment elsewhere. Still, too much seriousness would sink the record's fun party atmosphere, and ironic detachment is what
the Bouncing Souls do best. The songs that will likely leave the greatest impression upon listeners' memories are the more exuberant, uptempo tracks like "Bullying the Jukebox" and "¡Olé!," singalongs so blatant that their simplistic catchiness borders on excessive. There's also "Wish Me Well (You Can Go to Hell)," a spoof of male/female duets that may be a little obvious but injects a bit of endearing self-deprecation. ~ Steve Huey