For someone whose work emphasizes changing locales, singer/songwriter Josh Rouse has yet to travel beyond where-the-heart-is innocuousness. Here's a guy who claims he was ripped off by John Mayer, after all. Rouse started settling into his current rut with his agreeable yet insubstantial sophomore album, 2000's Home. Subsequent pleasantries like Under Cold Blue Stars, 1972, and last year's Nashville conspired to render debut Dressed Up Like Nebraska a big, brooding alt-country fakeout. Sure enough, Rouse stays the course on Subtítulo, his first album since ditching his former label and moving to Spain.

Setting has always been important to Rouse's music, and laidback opener "Quiet Town" depicts the troubadour's current Iberian environs atop sunny Harry Nilsson finger-picking, weeping strings, and campfire whistling. Spanish singer Paz Suay lends her lilting accent to duet "The Man Who...", though the pedal steel, bossa nova rhythm, and L-train mentions muddle the geography. Not a Travis reference, apparently: turns out the eponymous man just "doesn't know how to smile". And hey, if you're too cool for Jack Johnson's stoned beach bumming, there's always Rouse's scratchy impersonation on palm-swaying nostalgia trip "Summertime".

Rouse focuses on times and places, Subtítulo suggests, because he's not so hot at writing about people. Rouse's idea of a love song: "I'm so crazy about you/ So crazy and it's true/ I think you're wonderful/ Don't change," amid ebbing elevator strings. It's the worst thing I've heard this year that wasn't sung by Richard Ashcroft. Glossy potential single "It Looks Like Love" is equally vapid: "There goes that melancholy feeling again/ It looks like love is gonna find a way." As if merely mentioning sadness were the same as describing it. He'd need Mariah Carey's Olympian melismata to sell this brand of tacky sentiment, but Rouse is stuck with a strained Ryan Adams whine.

At only 33 minutes, Subtítulo doesn't leave Rouse, longtime producer Brad Jones, and their small band much time to recover from such miscues. Rouse's idea of a drinking song: "Givin' It Up", a heavy-handed ballad about going on the wagon-- "This is a world where no one feels sorry for you"-- replete with lovematic Barry White strings. Latin-tinged "His Majesty Rides", shaking it like Rob Thomas's "Smooth" without the Santana solos, finds Rouse singing, "Hey, look now/ We move from town to town". Cool, so does U-Haul.

-Marc Hogan, April 17, 2006