As much as Jon Bon Jovi would like to consider himself the next Springsteen, he isn't, and the thought of a Bon Jovi record in any way being influenced by the attacks of September 11 is too horrific a prospect to contemplate. Luckily, on Bounce, the references are kept in the background and the album is neither overtly melancholy nor directly poignant. It follows 2000's disappointing Crush--an album that, with just one single, managed to keep their flame alive in the … mehrcontext of modern rock music by revisiting a style that they'd been trying to get away from since "Livin' on a Prayer". Here, they try to move on from this again, but unlike 1991's Keep the Faith, they can't quite pull it off. The album has, however, a distinct and deliberately contemporary feel--power chords instead of endless Sambora guitar noodling. The opener, "Undivided", hammers this point home, and "The Distance" and first single "Everyday" tell you that Bon Jovi can compete with the upstarts. The polar opposites of these are old-style tracks--the Jovi/Sambora cowboy partnership of "Right Side of Wrong" and, yes, the token ballads--none of which compare to "Bed of Roses" or "Always". If the band could produce an album as contemporary, slick and just plain good as Jon Bon Jovi's second solo offering, Destination Anywhere, then their future would be assured. More mature, sophisticated and modern than Crush, it will galvanise their slowly declining position for a while longer. It's a disappointment, of course, but a pleasantly surprising one. --Ben Johncock weniger