Bleeding Heart Graffiti is undeniably pretty, but it's also pretty boring. Gordon's second solo album finds her sounding more than ever like Aimee Mann, with a lot of the "stately" tempos of Mann's recent albums. But Gordon dosn't have Mann's talent for wordplay or writing in character, and far too many of these songs are generic and obvious enough that they could be the background music for almost any scene in the teen TV drama of your choice. All these criticisms also apply to, say, "Loneliness is Worse" from Gordon's old band Veruca Salt, but the difference is that Gordon's old records were played (and produced) with more sharp teeth showing, so even songs that weren't especially hooky could benefit from the drama of sheer sonic bombast. There are some distorted power chords on Bleeding Heart Graffiti, but they're used like cake icing, for decorative purposes only -- this is just not an album about which you're going to say, "it rocks." And not every album has to rock, of course, but this one is so polite and well-mannered that it leaves almost no impression at all.