Caribou
Our Love (Merge)

Dan Snaith has nothing left to prove, at least not since closing the book on that Manitoba debacle. Everything he has released since 2007 has earned a Polaris Prize and/or Juno nomination, if not a win. Yet, with his audience clearly in his back pocket, he seems to be going in a safer direction on his sixth Caribou full-length, Our Love. In an interview, Snaith said that this album was made “for everybody, not just for me locked in a studio by myself”. The problem is, he’s best when he makes studio nerd music for himself, blending personal musings and exuberantly eclectic influences while servicing the dance floor with vintage club-music sounds and forms, something he did to perfection on 2010’s Swim.

Our Love sounds like it has been dumbed down for live performance, leaving the quirky, glitchy psychedelic indietronic side of his personality in the shadows. The melodies are mostly easy and repetitive, which is expected for dance music, but they aren’t saved by smart layering choices as per Caribou’s usual. “Mars” could have been a cool Daphni-esque track, but it ends up sounding more like the chocolate bar than the alien planet thanks to a poorly realized flute sound. “Julia Brightly” is invigoratingly upbeat, a kind of shoegaze-y trance track similar to “Sun” from Swim, but the texture stays too consistent and the lazy fade-in/fade-out makes it seem like a half-baked throwaway, while “Sun” always felt like it was changing gears.

Worst of all, Snaith’s vocals are twisted into a vacant falsetto throughout the album. This overreaching emotionality undermines the would-be gains on Owen Pallett–assisted downtempo ballad “Silver,” one of the few tracks that still push the envelope, and leaves “Can’t Do Without You”, “All I Ever Need”, and “Back Home” flaccid as banana peels. Here’s hoping he goes back to making music for himself again, because Our Love is not for everybody.