洋溢青春无敌的年轻气息，敲打无比快意的流畅旋律，为摇滚乐团戴上新世代偶像光环，摇旗吶喊着过瘾庞克乐章，完全不失流行音感，同样兼具实力与技巧，The Click Five五位爱音乐的小伙子，成功地打造出复古音频并与时兴调调结合，就连浓妆艳抹摇滚大团Kiss的主力战将Paul Stanley都对他们赞赏有加。 　　2003年，由一群来自柏克莱音乐学院的高材生：阿乔(Joe Guese，吉他手)、伊森(Ethan Mentzer，贝斯手)、班(Ben Romans，键盘手)与乔伊(Joey Zehr，鼓手)以及来自普渡大学的Eric Dill (主唱)等五位年轻学子，基于彼此对音乐都有着强烈的热情感应，所组成的The Click Five，于2005年夏发行首作"Greeting From Imrie House"，首周即以五万两千余张销售量，占据全美流行专辑榜Top15，创下当年新进乐团最高的首周销售佳绩，乐评的赞赏更是接踵而至。 　　2007年，在换上有着美型男外表且同样来自柏克莱的凯尔(Kyle Patrick)入替主唱之后，The Click Five发行了乐团的第二张大作"Modern Minds And Pastimes"，收录的作品包括了：揉合了令人雀跃的音乐活力与少男忧郁情怀，令人难以抗拒的首支主打单曲「Jenny」；可爱有趣的Do Do Do..合声，令人听得嘴角上扬快活，沈浸于七O年代音乐氛围与张力的摇滚快歌「Flipside」；以迷离、泫然欲泣的电吉他声，营造出感伤唯美情境、令人为之心碎的动人情歌「Mary Jane」；沾染复古音源、浓厚的Funky-Disco频率，夹杂怀念不已的合成器音色的「Headlight Disco」；由班仔与凯尔合写，浓烈沉重地让主唱必须以身体蜷曲的姿势发声，捕捉曲中孤离与脆弱心情的「Empty」；挥洒着即兴风采的「Happy Birthday」…等，成功地将各式曲风元素兼容契合，更在新鲜与怀旧中取得完美的平衡感，秀出令人刮目相看的好功力，不仅已成功攻占全台各大排行榜，更荣获2007年波士顿音乐奖的"年度杰出乐团"大奖肯定！ 　　Modern Minds and Pastimes is the second album of The Click Five, released on June 26, 2007. 　　The album contains four singles "Jenny", "Happy Birthday", "Empty" and "Flipside". It was well received in Southeast Asia although the album only reached position #136 in the US Billboard 200 albums chart. 　　The Click Five seems like such a great idea for a pop band that it's hard not to be disappointed that they're not quite as much fun as they promise. They're an unabashedly commercial boy band that can play but are nevertheless guided by manager Wayne Sharp who helped fill out the initial lineup of guitarist Joe Guese, bassist Ethan Mentzer and keyboardist Ben Romans, adding drummer Joey Zehr and singer Eric Dill to the mix, then packaging the group as band designed to translate current rock trends to kids that not only don't care about being hip, they're not even aware of what hip is. On their 2005 debut Greetings from Imrie House, they looked like a clean, commercial, unthreatening Hives on the cover and had strong Strokes streak running beneath a sound that was designed for kids who were beginning to outgrow Radio Disney. It was designed to be fun and it often was, although it didn't quite stick in the brain, nor did it have an impact on the charts despite tours with Ashlee Simpson and the Backstreet Boys. Such lack of commercial success offered the band an opportunity for reboot, which they seized, kicking out Dill and replacing him with Kyle Patrick and with a new singer came a new style, as the Click Five replaced their retro-rock leanings with retro-new wave flair -- a shameless attempt to follow fashion, but one that should be expected, even embraced, by a band that has nothing more than dreams of big hits in mind. If only the music on this second album, Modern Minds and Pastimes, were as big, tasteless and gaudy as the Click Five's career machinations! Part of the problem is that substituting the Killers for the Strokes means that the band relies too much on pumping wannabe anthems and layers of tongue-in-cheek retro-synths, which give the album a bit of a chilly distanced feel at odds with music designed to be teen trash, but also to be the group's strengths. The Click Five are at their best when they're at their silliest or at their most melodic, as on the over-stuffed yet sleek "Happy Birthday" giving way to the glorious, ridiculous "Headlight Disco" (its title gives away exactly what kind of retro-pastiche this is), running through the surging "I'm Getting Over You" (the best anthem they have here, because the chorus glides by on a big hook) and ending with "Jenny," a fantastic neo-Weezer pop tune. This is genuinely fun pop, a ray of sunshine compared to the stylized murk that comprises the rest of the album as the Click Five work an '80s revivalism that's big on texture but not hooks. And while pop music is always about image, it also needs tunes to carry that image and the Click Five has a hard time getting enough of those tunes to make for a consistently entertaining album. It was a problem they had on Greetings, it's a problem they have here on Modern Minds -- they have a couple good songs on each, which is usually enough for any singles-oriented big pop album, but the key to those records is that those singles have to be big hits in order for the not-bad, not-good filler to be overlooked. Without those big hits, the Click Five's albums seem to blend together and fade, becoming more memorable for what they're trying to be instead of what they've achieved.