Pop Music Reviews : NKOTB Can’t Hide Behind an Acronym

No Kidding: On The Block. The chopping block, that is.

That’s where the recently acronymed ex-teen-idol group NKOTB finds itself these days--abandoned to its critics now that the little girls have grown up and moved on. The quintet’s latest album dropped off the Top 200 chart almost instantly, and once-slavish Top 40 programmers are denying they ever knew the New Kids.

And yet, at the Palace on Friday--where the R&B; vocalizers were backed by a six-piece band and three dancers--there was the same screaming near-hysteria among what faithful remain, albeit at a different pitch. Average age at a New Kids show six years ago: 12. Average now: 18.

At first, you could almost root along with the predominantly female full house for a fair shake for the lads. Quite unlike six years ago, the hip-hop choreography is actually grown-up-level good , and cute guys warbling in creditable falsettos never go out of style.

But the dancing got slacker as the set went along, and Donnie Wahlberg’s ridiculous macho-man raps kept interfering with whatever tentative charm his fellows’ balladry might offer. The set included just over half-a-dozen numbers--all from the new album, save for a perfunctory oldies medley--padded to an hour with a lot of self-congratulatory chitchat (none of it acknowledging the absence of missing Kid Jonathan Knight, due to a horse-riding accident).

To quote LL Cool J: Don’t call it a comeback.