** ATC

PLANET POP

(Republic/Universal)

Fans of chirpy European dance pop were no doubt disappointed last year when the second Aqua album stiffed and the second Vengaboys album never even came out in the US. Fortunately, they're still cranking out pretty young house hitmakers across the pond, like this cosmopolitan boy-girl quartet from Germany. Their moniker stands for A Touch of Class, but it's trash they're after on the breakout hit "Around the World (La La La La La)," a silly dance-floor update of the Daft Punk and Aqua hits of the same name with a subtitled nonsense hook that's catchier and less annoying than Eiffel 65's "Blue (Da Ba Dee)." They get the formula even more right on "My Heart Beats like a Drum (Dum Dum Dum)," where one of the girl singers puts on her best Barbie voice and, over a twinkling vibes lick, pines for a boy she met at the Hard Rock Café.

The rest of the disc is all over the map, with decidedly less thrilling results. High points include the weepy Natalie Imbruglia sound-alike "Mistake No. 2" and the Britney-meets-Erasure faux rock bombast of "Let Me Come & Let Me Go." But when ATC start hauling out the adult-contemporary ballads and Latin-pop bandwagon moves, their pointless genre hopping gets to be too much.

Sean Richardson