54 Seconds

54 Seconds officially hails from Austin, TX, they’ve been around for nearly a decade, and there are a few facts about them that make for good press. First, singer/guitarist Spencer Gibb is the son of Robin Gibb of Bee Gees’ fame. Given that a great many people still love the Bee Gees and Spencer automatically has that whole “born into pop music” thing going for him, this is pretty indispensable, especially if it doesn’t turn out to be the usual rock n’ roll albatross (see Lennon, Julian and Dylan, Jakob). Second, bassist Rachael Loy actually had a hit some years back with “The Same Man”, written for her friend fighting in the current Iraq War, so 54 Seconds has the advantage of two minor celebrities in their fold. Also, they’ve signed with BMG Music, so that’s another ace in the hole. However, is Postcards From California any good? The answer depends entirely on your definition of the word (when does it not?).

With Postcards, 54 Seconds seems to have set out to make an adult contemporary-style pop record, perhaps vaguely disguised as an indie rock album. You know the style: perfectly polished production, as bland and inoffensive as possible, too mellow to properly rock, too upbeat to mope properly, and, of course, everything is taken a bit too seriously. One sometimes longs for the 90s when the majority of the bands saddled with the AC label were actually fun to listen to (as well as completely loathed by Jim DeRogatis, which upped the fun factor considerably). However, you won’t find much in the ways of catchiness, hummable melodies, or anything that makes for good radio songs here.

For the most part, you get a big, slick, mid-tempo record played by a very able band, the problem being that we’ve heard this sort of thing before too many times and there’s very little that makes the music of 54 Seconds stand out. You know the story of these records: guy meets girl(s), guy loses girl(s), guy spends 10 or 12 songs brooding over girl(s), makes his best attempt at getting all deep, but more often than not comes off a tad whiny and, if the listener is lucky, unintentional hilarity ensues when our wounded poet hero does himself in with his own ridiculously pretentious lyrics. By the halfway point, you really want our hero to get over the chick in question and address something else.

Granted, Gibb doesn’t really embarrass himself here, but he never grabs you by the throat and makes you take notice. He has a voice that vaguely recalls Lifehouse’s Jason Wade (minus the ability to really belt it out for the patented post-grunge “all of a sudden the guitars are loud” chorus), singing in the usual “my voice is cracked and aching all the time” style with little to no variation, rendering him (and, as a result, the songs) more than a bit bland, left wanting for the one essential ingredient in pop music that so many overlook: personality.

Of course, people say similar things about the Wallflowers, so who knows.

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