After making an impressive comeback with 2014's Lunchbox Loves You, which reimagined the band as a pint-sized power pop group with the swagger of a glam rock band and more hooks than the Archies, Lunchbox return with another glittering prize of an album. After School Special is a home-cooked delight that's made with clanging guitars, happily bouncy bass lines, piping trumpets, warm vintage keys, and vocals so sweet they could melt teeth. Along with snappy bubblegum tracks like "Gary of the Academy" and "I Really Wanna Know" that sound as sugar smacked as a bowl of Frosted Flakes, there are radiant intervals of sunshine pop ("Dream Parade") and fuzzy psych ("Melt into Air") that fit perfectly next to jagged blasts of mod excitement ("It's Over Now") and chiming melancholia ("Three Cheers for Autumntime"). A couple songs -- the title track and "Melt into Air" -- have some of the soft glide that the band's records from the '90s had, only with about 75 percent more lo-fi grit added. Overall, the album is a fine mix of moods and musical approaches that flows like a well-chosen mixtape, each song sounding as much like a lost AM radio hit as the one that came before. Tim Brown (guitars, vocals) and Donna McKean (bass, vocals) have both been doing this a long time, and they combine their experience as songwriters and producers with a charming innocence that makes the record sound exceedingly fresh and new even though it's taking multiple nostalgia trips at once. This album might not be the same knockout blow that Loves You was, but it connects with enough quick jabs and sneaky uppercuts to achieve the same impact in the end and should satisfy Lunchbox's fans as well as anyone who loves low-budget, high-excitement indie pop.