Give Nina Gordon credit for this: as her former bandmate Louise Post entrenches Veruca Salt in the sound and styles of the mid-'90s on their 2006 effort IV, Gordon enthusiastically embraces maturity with her second solo album, Bleeding Heart Graffiti.

Too bad that this means that Bleeding Heart Graffiti is a textbook example of why maturity often means boredom in rock & roll, an eminently tasteful and utterly bland collection of adult pop that's not just an album, but a song cycle tracing the breakup of a relationship; it's as if she's on a mission to tackle every cliché in the adult pop book and prove them true.

Gordon may be following the pattern that Liz Phair wrote when she made the leap from indie rock to Gap ads, but Gordon is so tasteful she bypasses the garish mall pop of Phair's Neptunes' productions and goes straight for the stultifying pop of Somebody's Miracle, where the sound was designed as background music for The Gilmore Girls.

Bleeding Heart Graffiti has more ambition than Somebody's Miracle -- for one, Gordon is hungrier than Phair, itching for a little bit of her reputation or exposure, so she's written a tighter album, and her performances are infused with a sense of purpose that are nevertheless ground down by professional precision -- the same precision that defangs such otherwise good songs as "Suffragette," a mild rocker that wants to be livelier than it is on this record.

And that's really the problem with Bleeding Heart Graffiti: the songs aren't bad and Gordon is earnest enough, but this record is so mannered and tasteful it's impossible to remember whether you've heard it or not.