Ooh my. Have they really grown up? The cover is sharply reminiscent of Sgt. Pepper`s and the liner notes feature some cool black & whites of the boys, now sporting goatees and a vague fame-isn`t-all-it`s-made-out-to-be air.If you somehow hadn`t heard of `NSync before (how was your trip from Alpha Centauri?) you could actually be fooled into thinking this was a bunch of serious musicians and not a Greenback-raking pop machine. Speaking of serious music, the pundits are already tolling the knell for boy bands. Faced with a shape-up or ship-out scenario like that, NSync have visited all the proven 

Two of the Sync`ers (this album is another big seller, so they`re actually swimmers), Justin Timberlake and J C Chasez, actually share writing credits on most of the songs. And they`re trying, oh how they`re trying to get some real feeling into those dance-pop grooves and ballads. It`s the usual mix - stuttering, grossly overproduced dance tracks with the keening R&B simper-ballads in between. If you ask me, everything sounds more and more like a bloody cheap video game as you get in the groove. 

The Game Is Over even features a sample from Pac Man. Tell Me; Tell Me...Baby - wonder where they learned to punctuate - and Up Against The Wall are what`s driving people crazy on dance floors but they left me curiously unmoved. And hey, maybe I just don`t get it, but after you`ve gone through a few, don`t they all sound exactly alike? Maybe that`s the point. Knob twiddlers there are a-plenty, including - of course - Rodney Jerkins, and the boys pull off some nifty harmonies once in a while. Selfish is sticky-saccharine but it`s probably the best ballad on this record, featuring the smooth smooth Mr Brian McKnight. `NSync are probably the best the boy-band world has to offer right now. By stepping up and writing a lot of their own material and actually showing signs of pushing that overblown envelope, they`ve definitely got a few more years in the bag.