Following commercial and critical success from “Never Trust A Happy Song,” Grouplove is back with more tunes.

Unfortunately for the Los Angeles based alternative band, the new album, “Spreading Rumors,” brings more duds than hits.

The album starts off surprisingly mellow with a mesmerizing piano piece that builds into an arterial jam (almost) worthy of Radiohead. The song really continues the tone set by their first album: spacey and loose, but cool.

If only this trend continued.

The rest of the album, besides a few gems, relies mostly on straight beats and repetitive melodies. They occasionally branch out to bring in interesting guitar licks and drum solos (most likely an attempt to awe with musicianship), but much of it is distracting and cluttered.

The album would be better if the strongest songs were spread throughout to provide relief to the listener. Instead, the majority of these gems occur within the first half of the album, making the back half a trudge to get through.

The dance-evoking single “Ways To Go,” the island-sounding “Shark Attack,” and the effects-driven “Hippy Hill” are all standout songs, but occur within four songs of each other.

Furthermore, the album is long. Thirteen tracks are too many to have such a small number of head-nodders. If three songs had been cut out of the album, it would be much stronger and a much easier listen.

“Spreading Rumors” will likely see success, and may even see a song (probably “Ways To Go”) hit the radio. However, all in all, it’s a disappointing sophomore album from an otherwise promising band.

3 out of 5