From the photos on Marvelous 3’s latest album cover, Hey! Album (Elektra Entertainment), you would think the members of the band were the biggest hoodlums to come around in a long time. They have the black leather, the piercings, the tattoos, even the required sneer for the camera. Listen to the band’s empty music, and you realize these guys are just typical lovable – and boring – fellows.

New wave bands, punk bands, Elvis Costello and Aerosmith make the abridged list of the groups and singers Marvelous 3 tries to imitate. More often than not, they end up sounding like bubble gum punk – menacing enough for kids to consider the band rebels but nothing for parents to worry about.

The opening track, “You’re So Yesterday” starts out sounding like something from the hey-day of new wave. But as soon as singer Butch Walker opens his mouth with a “doo da doo” chorus, it’s back to the same old music most people have heard since the beginning of the decade. “Freak of the Week” doesn’t improve things. The band tries too hard to sound like Smashing Pumpkins, and Walker strains his voice so he sounds like Costello with strep throat.

The band does have a sensitive side. The requisite teen-angst ballad appears on the album with the song “Let Me Go,” which has definite potential to end up on an episode of “Dawson’s Creek.” All of the songs mentioned come in the first half of the album, but the second half isn’t much different – more punk-lite, more sappy teen-angst. After a while, it gets hard to tell the songs apart.

The songs can make you nod your head to the beat, but there’s nothing you remember about them when they’re done. The band, however, does a great job following the formula that gave success to bands such as Everclear and Third Eye Blind, so Marvelous 3 should see the same results. Success one month, Hey! Album in the bargain bin at record stores the next.