Mika: 'The Boy Who Knew Too Much'

Oh Mika, you don't do yourself any favours. Not only do you return after an 18-month chart hiatus with a single that sounds like Jim Steinman doing High School Musical, but you give it a video in which you're seen leaping about in a recreated version of your teenage bedroom wearing nothing but a pair of baggy pants and some jaunty sneakers. As pop promos go, 'We Are Golden' makes The Prodigy's 'Smack My Bitch Up' seem like easy viewing.

Then again, if you'd shifted six million copies of your debut album while acting like a cross between Freddie Mercury and a Muppet, you'd probably carry on doing precisely as you fancy. Yes, that's six million - and this follow-up proves that Mika didn't become a major pop player by accident. The Boy Who Knew Too Much gives short shrift to current trends, a couple of synthier tracks aside, but nearly everything comes equipped with a big, singalong chorus that's sure to sound great in the arenas Mika now commands.

Mika's not just a formidable pop craftsman – he's versatile too. 'Rain' sounds a bit like Scissor Sisters covering Erasure; 'Blue Eyes' is a neat Paul Simon homage, and 'Good Gone Girl' brings to mind Elton John after a Haribo binge – not the most appealing of images, it has to be said, but it's a decent tune. Elsewhere Mika tries his hand at everything from supper club jazz ('Pick Up Off The Floor') to glammy balladry ('Dear John'), pulling the lion's share off in his own inescapably cheesy fashion.

What he's actually singing about is less impressive. His character pieces tend to be glib and simplistic - in 'Good Gone Girl' a woman called Georgia is "gorgeous", while one named April is... wait for it... "hateful" - and his supposedly personal songs give next to nothing away. Of course, the album's stock setting of "pretty jaunty" doesn't help matters. Even when Mika croons a line like "Gonna shoot somebody / Help me drive this craziness away", the music he's singing over remains perky and playful.

Then there are moments when Mika is, well, that bit too Mika. On 'Blame It On The Girls' he can't resist following a lyric about a bottle of wine with a cork-pop sound effect, while the falsetto on 'One Foot Boy' could put a Texan oil mogul off his steak supper. The nadir is 'Toy Boy', a nauseating slice of music hall whimsy which features the line "She's the meanest hag that has ever been" and Mika rhyming "Georgia" with "adored ya". At times like this, however good his tunes are, you find yourself wishing that someone in the studio had said, 'Oh come on mate, show some restraint'.