The Walk starts off with "Great Divide", looping African children's voices as background (singing that flows in and out of the entire album) and while it might not be the best creative decision, there's no getting over the electric guitar riffs and Taylor Hanson's signature "oh's and yeah's". By the fourth cut, "Georgia" you'll be typing your name into the little yellow Hanson.net newsletter box too. So the song's title's been used one hundred times over but I dare you not to walk around your kitchen singing "I don't wanna let you go / and I don't wanna lose you slowly." If you're a strong willed one, maybe, but there's no way you'll make it through "Running Man" without friending the band on MySpace (myspace.com/hansonmusic).

Comparing this album's ballads to the well-written, smartly produced cuts on This Time Around (check out "Song to Sing") and Underneath's title track, The Walk falls short in some ways and proves itself in others. "One More", a slow dance of a song, grows on you but lyrically doesn't catch up to the piano based title track or the UK released single, "Go". Again with the children on backing vocals but, "Blue Sky" gives listeners yet another reason to drive with their windows rolled down and their left hands drumming on the driver's side door.

The album's downfalls settle in the "neh neh neh"'s on "Tearing it Down", which teeter on the edge of annoying, and "Your Illusion", where the brothers make the head-in-hands mistake of rhyming "conclusion" with "illusion", forming an obvious no-go.