Eve 6’s Charms Wear Thin, Despite Tempting Lead Tune

Never trust pretty boys with lots of tattoos and pierced faces. They’ll seduce you with the sexy cartoon glamour of a great opening tune--like this album’s “Rescue,” sporting a squishy disco beat and a zingy mesh of buzzing guitars and catchy choruses that bring to mind Duran Duran’s heyday. Then they’ll dash your hopes with the tedious heartland rock of the first single, “Promise,” full of shallow insights and sensitive-guy pledges that echo every Dave Matthews/Verve Pipe/Matchbox Twenty clone around.

Two years after Eve 6’s platinum-plus debut, its sophomore collection offers no clear idea of where the L.A.-based band (which headlines the Palace on Saturday) is going.

“Horrorscope” veers from a lame mid-tempo ballad (“Here’s to the Night”) to driving power-pop swagger (“Amphetamines”), then to syncopated, staccato romantic angst (“Jet Pack”). The harder-sounding tunes are more exciting, but singer-bassist Max Collins seems to relish such sweeter numbers as “Girl Eyes,” as if beneath all that ink-scrawled flesh lies a closet Archies fan.

These songs will prove just as disposable, but at least the young players don’t take themselves too seriously. They offer a typically ironic view in the catchy anti-suicide anthem “On the Roof Again,” but Blink-182’s “Adam’s Song” is a far more distinctive portrait of youth’s eternal flirtation with oblivion.

** Snake River Conspiracy, “Sonic Jihad,” Reprise.

How seriously should we take a band proclaimed by a man (songwriter-producer Jason Slater) as his effort to prove that not all “chick rock” is wimpy? Tobey Torres delivers his angry rants and lurching pop in a powerful voice that’s alternately soft as a sigh and hard as Nine Inch Nails. But though thrillingly aggressive, this blend of techno, industrial and electronica has riveting moments only with “Breed” and “Vulcan.”

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent). The albums are already released unless otherwise noted.