Music releases: Plain White T's

BIG BAD WORLD

Hollywood Records

The Plain White T’s, for all of the bluster over their Grammy-nominated No. 1 single “Hey There Delilah,” are incapable of thrills. They’ve played it shamefully safe on their new album “Big Bad World,” as if they had no clout at all.

Each turn toward the bridge soars just enough to let you know it’s coming, but not so much to stir the senses. Lyrics like “staring me down with those electric eyes” are thrust non-ironically upon the listener, as if lead singer and songwriter Tom Higgenson had never heard of the 1980s and each of the 700 bands that used an eerily similar line before him.

“Meet Me In California” is about the love travails of Higgenson, and the elusive treasures that await him on a move to the Golden State. There’s a girl in the picture, of course, and the storyline might have held a measure of drama, had the band not drowned it in syrupy strains devoid of musical grit.

There’s simply no way to like this.

— Ron Harris,

The Associated Press