Brett Dennen

Everything bad about Brett Dennen’s latest album, “Hope for the Hopeless,” is in its first track. Dennen is not a wonderful lyricist, his themes aren’t particularly deep, but as a whole, “Hope for the Hopeless” is a pleasant enough diversion. That first track, though, is almost enough to make you give up on the album.

The song is called “San Francisco,” and it’s about a guy who leaves a bad relationship for the City by the Bay. From the way he tells it, though, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the girl’s fault that things went bad. For example: “Go if you wanna go / But I won’t follow / Just so you know,” and “This old town keep shrinking / There’s too many people in my junk / I’m gonna do a lot of drinking / ’Cause it don’t hurt when I’m drunk.”

Emotional immaturity is one of the album’s major unintentional themes, along with self-centeredness and the whiny frustration of the “misunderstood.” On songs called “Who Do You Think You Are?” and “Wrong About Me,” Dennen sounds like a sneering, snotty seven-year-old. “Wrong About Me” is followed by a song called “So Far From Me.” Well, can you blame her?

Not every song is like that, though. “So Far From Me” has some nice, simple, sensitive lyrics: “If my heart wasn’t such a jungle / Maybe you wouldn’t feel so all alone / If your heart wasn’t such an ocean / I wouldn’t sink like a stone.” The second half of the album is generally better than the first, which would seem like emotional growth if “Who Do You Think You Are” weren’t two tracks from the end. Still, the last song, “Ain’t Gonna Lose You,” has a mellow humility that goes a long way toward making you forget some of the things that came before.

Oh, but “San Francisco.” His voice has that languid indie raspiness perfected by acts such as Regina Spektor and Arcade Fire, which lays on a coat of artificiality right from the get-go. After complaining about life at home, he proceeds to describe San Francisco in the way that same seven-year-old might describe the circus—the ultimate playground to run away to, an indie paradise. “Up in North Beach they drink spicy Italian liqueur / Down on Market there’s a lot of hobos and hustlers / Down in Hayes Valley there’s a lot of good restaurants / Deep in the Tenderloin you can have anything you want.”

If those don’t read like lyrics, I can assure you, they don’t sound like lyrics, either. There’s a complacency to the album, as though someone once told Dennen, “Great songwriters don’t always follow the rules,” and he said “Good, I’ll go with that.” He is much better musically than lyrically, carrying an acoustic-y vibe throughout despite some funky experimentation in the rhythm section and a foray into reggae (the album’s first single, “Make You Crazy”). When the lyrics are plodding and over-deliberate, a surprise guitar lick or nice chord progression on the piano keeps things from getting too dull.

The sound is thoroughly Californian, and lo and behold, Dennen hails from Oakdale, Calif. To his credit, he has done extensive work with The Mosaic Project, a San Francisco-based non-profit that educates children on diversity. He even made an album of music-related curriculum—“Children’s Songs for Peace and a Better World”—for them. And given his seven-year-old’s mentality, it’s easy to see how he could relate.

“Hope for the Hopeless” isn’t hopelessly lackluster, but it doesn’t give me hope for the pop cultural future, either. ABC’s faded idol “Grey’s Anatomy” featured one song, “Ain’t Gonna Lose You,” on its Oct. 17 episode, which speaks loudly about the type of album it came from. Who better to accompany a group of self-absorbed, neurotic 20-somethings in the OR than a self-absorbed, neurotic 20-something on the guitar? Thankfully, “Grey’s” moment has passed, and hopefully “Hope for the Hopeless” will soon follow suit.

—Reviewer Jillian J. Goodman can be reached jjgoodm@fas.harvard.edu.