Like any good teen phenomenon, now that
the Naked Brothers Band are going, there's no stopping them.
I Don't Want to Go to School, the band's second album, showed up a mere six months after the first, just as a second season started up on Nickelodeon. Just as all the songs on the first eponymous album are pulled from the first season of the show, all the songs on this second record are culled from the second season, and considering the short gap between the two records (not to mention seasons), it should come as no surprise that they sound pretty similar, filled with tight, hooky songs that don't overstay their welcome yet linger in the mind, certainly more than such modern-day bubblegum often does. This is ever so slightly less zippy than the first
Naked Brothers Band album -- the energy has been dialed down a bit, there are a few more ballads, and there are even songs that feel ever so slightly tinged with regret, something that Nat Wolff's vaguely affected British accent accentuates in parts. Even mentioning this trace element of melancholy is misleading, as
I Don't Want to Go to School is hardly a sad album: it's a bright, cheerful pop album made for kids. And, just like before, while this is made for kids, it's not cloying or sweet like so much teenie pop, and it's built on some sturdy pop constructions that will please older listeners who never bother with the show. If
I Don't Want to Go to School doesn't necessarily show a progression from The Naked Brothers Band, it nevertheless amply proves that the debut was no fluke. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine