Not Ripe Enough, Even in Teen Years

It’s the year of the teenager, and in film and television, where adults can relate tales of adolescent rites through the lens of maturity, that can be a good thing.

In music, it’s the rare teen who can produce something valuable on his or her own; they haven’t acquired enough depth-giving distance or experience. Hanson’s “MMMBop” may be a great pop record, but insightful it’s not.

It’s no surprise that O.C.’s latest teen entry, Home Grown, is only half-grown in its songwriting, which is handled by singer-guitarist John E. Trash and singer-bassist Adam Lohrbach. Though the band delights in resisting the pulls of adulthood (“Grow Up”), its blend of ska, punk and pop, catchy as it is, isn’t clever enough to cover for the group’s immaturity.

Since forming while three of the four were attending El Modena High School in Orange, Home Grown has built a following on the all-ages scene with its simple and perennial themes: sexual frustration and high-school life.

On “Act Your Age,” the quartet’s second album (and its first for a major label), the group still hasn’t graduated emotionally, despite the fact that Trash, Lohrbach and drummer Bob Herco are now college-bound.

They still relate to women on a locker-room level, imagining the ideal woman as one who’s amply endowed in “Surfer Girl,” in which British-invasion harmonies are intercut with thick guitar lines. And yet they can’t understand, in “Envy Me,” why women might fixate on their own breasts for self-esteem (duh). They complain about stupid girls (“Wow, She Dumb”), but stupid boys abound as well.

Home Grown seemingly never met a musician it didn’t like to steal from. Those sources run from obvious ska and punk peers (Green Day, MxPx, NOFX--three bands for the price of one) to the occasional Eddie Van Halen guitar squeal (in what should have been the single, “She’s Anti”) to neo-new wave riffs (mostly Weezer-esque).

With all the style hopping, however skillful, Home Grown loses continuity, as if appropriating the personalities of all the cool kids in school, never claiming one for itself.

* Home Grown plays Sunday with Unwritten Law and Sprung Monkey at Old World Hall, 7561 Center Ave., Huntington Beach. 6 p.m. $9. (714) 991-2055, (714) 895-8020, (714) 570-8687.

Albums are rated on a scale of * (poor) to **** (excellent), with *** denoting a solid recommendation.