by Andrew LeaheyCobra Starship surfaced in 2006 as part of the well-marketed Snakes on a Plane package, and the band's spiky pop-punk found a quick home among cult film buffs and Samuel L. Jackson fanatics. It was easy to like this first incantation of Cobra Starship -- especially the breakout single "Bring It (Snakes on a Plane)" -- as the band was part of something fun, flashy, and consciously campy. ¡Viva la Cobra! arrives one year after that emergence, however, and the joke is wearing thin on this sophomore release. What began as something harmlessly fun (replete with eye-candy cameos by William Beckett and Maja Ivarsson) has turned into a full-fledged band, and while ¡Viva la Cobra! attempts to reach the same glitzy, hedonistic peak of the group's first hit, it unfortunately falls short. There's enough melody here to satisfy most lingering fans, and Cobra Starship get a major leg-up from Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump, who doubles as producer and co-writer for all 11 tracks. But even Stump can't give the band another sure-fire hit, and all the dance-pop numbers end up repeating the same steps in an attempt to perfect the one routine Cobra Starship know how to do. The electronic percussion and dancefloor sleaze become quickly -- if not instantly -- familiar, so that by the time "Smile for the Paparazzi" introduces a touch of Spanish heat to a thoroughly Americanized album, it's too late to really matter. "Strike while it's hot -- there ain't too much room at the top," sings frontman Gabe Saporta, and while that's some solid advice in a contested world of pop-punk, it doesn't keep ¡Viva la Cobra! from nearly striking out.