For a band that synthesizes so many schools of piano-based orchestration, from Billy Joel and boogie woogie to Latin jazz-inflected radio-pandering, LittleHorses delivers a maddeningly homogenized sound, one that rarely does credit to the instrumental virtuosity on display. Perhaps what's most disheartening is that the two brothers who make up the band are forcing the boisterous improvisational elements of their influences into Top 40 straitjackets. Even the ivory-spanking jazz runs of "Tell Me What You'd Say" or the many brass glissandos draped all over Strangers in the Valley feel scripted to within an inch of their lives. Syncopation is just an appropriated tic here-something ground out in tightly controlled spurts for a finger-snapping, white-bread a cappella group. LittleHorse seem more honest with the baroque turns of phrase bubbling in sleeper successes like "Solider's Lullaby." Which is not to say they don't love and live in the genres they appropriate-only that a monolithic vision of 4/4 inoffen

siveness demands that those allusions fall in line.

But if LittleHorse is happy to be the heir to Maroon 5-whom they trump at every turn in comparable craft and lyric character-I can scarcely complain. Their readymade superhit, "I Want Your Love," explodes here in original and radio edited guises, wielding its airlessly impeccable production value like a souped-up sniper rifle. The precisely descending chorus harmonies have ruthlessly obliterated the smallest imperfection, the siblings' voices taking on an obviously computerized sheen. But there's no arguing with the ultra-pop Golem they've brought to life: it destroys everything in its path. Not surprisingly, they never try to top it.