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Warm analogue synthesizers, pattering drum machines, and Victoria Legrande’s bewitchingly androgynous vocals have remained at the heart of Beach House’s dream-pop sound since their formation. While each of their first four records marked progressions in songwriting and production quality, the band’s latest LP Depression Cherry (released merely two months ago) seemed to be a step sideways. Where Depression Cherry substituted waves of shoegaze guitar fuzz for the melodic hooks and swelling crescendos that made previous Beach House records so compelling, Thank Your Lucky Stars is stripped of both the songwriting strength and the stellar production of the band’s earlier output.

What’s left is pleasant at best, and dull at worst. Polite chord progressions with little compositional substance abound. Drum machines stroll monotonously through measure-long loops for minutes without changing. Unengaging synthesizer solos and instrumental choruses stand in for proper endings on more than half of the tracks. The mix is fuzzy and flat. The moments where a distorted guitar or organ jumps out of the painfully-restrained instrumentation offer respite on such a uniformly soft-spoken record; however, they’re so few and far between that they almost seem out of place.

Still, there’s something undeniably valuable in Thank Your Lucky Stars that will, perhaps, pervade every album Beach House records: surface beauty. Legrande’s voice is as soothing and inviting as ever, as is the bed of synthesizer and guitar arpeggios it floats above. The soulful sliding guitar riff on The Traveller, the lovely vocal melodies of Majorette, and the Chromatics-esque gloom of the record’s clear highlight All Your Yeahs, all hint at directions Beach House could go on their next album. If only they had taken the time to get there before releasing this one.