I don’t usually write reviews like this – but Ness really pisses me off.

The minute I finished listening to the first track off Up Late With People, I was so excited that I grabbed a pencil and scribbled down some things like “These guys kick ass!” and “…The Hives meet Beck!” and “pick up some milk.” (I was also thinking about what I needed on my way home from work.)

The first track, “Where the People Kick It,” is a raucous, high-energy song, featuring gigantic power chords, surrounded by a nut-rattling bass line and pounding, sphincter-loosening drums. The intensity of the vocals rivals those of such high-energy acts like The Hives or The Vines – yet the style and lyrics have Beck-like qualities. A formula that really works well and could spell success.

But where this song is a ceiling-busting spike on the “interesting” meter, the rest of the album absolutely flatlines in comparison. It is a disjointed and tepid collection of songs that sound like long-lost Elvis Costello B-sides. Gone is the enthusiasm, the fun rock n’ roll atmosphere and the mammoth-sized hooks of the first song. A complete letdown.

In fact, as the album drones on, we are afflicted with the title track that clock in around 13 minutes long. Some sort of narcissistic rock-opera in the vein of “Roundabout” meets “Bohemian Rhapsody” meets “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant.” And if that sounds like something that shouldn’t be done – you’re right. It’s 13 minutes of my life I’d like to have back.

Okay, I’ll admit, maybe I’m looking at it from a bad angle – vision obscured by a grand opening song. After all, Ness has an entire press sheet full of glowing reviews. Quotes like “gloriously audacious” and “a chaotic assault of sounds and segues” and “a marvelous enigma”. And maybe if I had heard this album without the opening track, I could have put together a more positive and constructive spin on the overall effort. (Although chances are, without the opening track, I probably would have ignored this CD altogether.) But Ness doesn’t need glowing reviews filled with colorful adjectives – they need a producer (or a better one). Someone that will slap a box around them, give the focus knob a few turns and put the clamps on whoever is overdoing their press package.

Until that happens, the only thing I can recommend is to download the song “Where the People Kick It” to your iPod, play it loud and play it often.