* * * * <i> Great Balls of Fire</i> * * * <i> Good Vibrations</i> * * <i> Maybe Baby</i> * <i> Running on Empty : </i> : HOOTER MISS

* * “ONE WAY HOME.” Hooters. Columbia. On their 1985 debut, the Hooters came across as precocious craftsmen with a knack for turning out well-constructed pop-rock tunes and with a penchant for using mandolins and melodicas to splash them with various instrumental colors. But generally, the Philadelphia quintet ended up with technically sharp but artistically hollow results, and “One Way Home” seems a bid to balance that scale.

Unfortunately, they’re coming up short--sometimes by trying too hard. Head Hooters Rob Hyman and Eric Bazilian string together lines like, “I was a young Romeo tryin’ to find Juliet / I was hot on the trail of my own silhouette,” which has a literary allusion and a nice rhyme and all, but is a pretty lame couplet. Similarly, the Hooters try to pass off some whole tunes as big statements , but as most of these songs fade, their significance remains known only to the band. And on something like “Fightin’ on the Same Side”--which extends a romance/battlefield metaphor to hackneyed extremes--you kind of wish it did.

At least the group and producer Rick Chertoff (who helped write six of the songs) still exhibit a gift for attaching the lyrics to a handful of crisp, sinewy pop pieces and lilting reggae-ish romps. It all makes for a harmless exercise in catchy, radio-ready rock.