The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do and takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you got to take it up a notch, but you don't wanna blow your wad, so then you got to cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules.

--Rob Gordon, High Fidelity

The boys of The Fratellis don't fail to heed Rob Gordon's rules of mixtaping. The band kicks off its debut album, Costello Music, with a killer called "Henrietta" to grab attention.

Then the band takes it up a notch with its as-heard-in-an-iPod-commercial song "Flathead," which adds some bells and whistles to keep it different and a bit more interesting.

To keep from blowing its wad, the band cools it down a notch with "Whistle for the Choir," which showcases the vocals of lead singer Jon Fratelli (nee John Lawler) over an acoustic guitar.

The band shows it's capable of toning it down, but when "Chelsea Dagger" kicks in, the "brothers" show that they're more content to stick to the high-octane numbers.

While the band staved off blowing its wad, it can't help but bust its seams eventually. "Chelsea Dagger" has the catchiest chorus on the album, but it marks the beginning of a stretch of similarly styled songs that simply aren't as good.

But if the lows on Costello Music are low, the highlights are stratospheric.

"Flathead" rocks with an energy that most bands only dream of matching.

When at its best, The Fratellis' songs have a "live" atmosphere to them.

They should only be played at full volume through gigantic speakers.

At any other level, they're just wasted energy.

It's no fun to yell along to "la la la"s and "do do do"s when you can't do it at the top of your lungs.

The album opener, "Henrietta," was written about a devoted groupie with a jealous husband.

You'd be hard pressed to come up with a better introduction to the band.

Its carnival bounce and up-and-down drum beats are backed up by a fuzzy, punked-up rock sound. The band accents its carny-rock style with a staccato lead vocal and infectious gang vocals.

There's a reason it's a signature of the album, however: Most of the songs never stray far from this formula.

That's not to say the songs all sound the same, but about half of them ... kind of do. Some are great, some not so great.

But the band rarely mixes up its style, and when there's little substance, an old style falters.

Speaking of old, there's something familiar about the style.

It's one thing to call a band "derivative," since, at its heart, all music is meant to be derivative. Art imitates life and life imitates art.

But it seems a bit coincidental that eight months after The Arctic Monkeys became England's darlings, Scotland's The Fratellis released an album that sounds a heck of a lot like the Monkeys'. Jon Fratelli sings with a very affected cockney accent, much like the Monkeys' Alex Turner.

The band also borrows much of the Monkeys' raucous shouted harmonies and bar-band drum beats.

But while The Fratellis could stand accused of borrowing, they certainly provide enough originality that they're not stealing. Costello Music stands on its own as a refreshing -- albeit somewhat monotonous -- piece of rock.

There may be a few too many throwaway tracks, but the peaks are impossible to ignore. Grade: B