If a Casio keyboard had a button marked “Canadian Indie Rock,” it would probably make a noise like Chad VanGaalen’s Soft Airplane. From the faux-naïve cover art to the predictable musical references (Neil Young, Sufjan Stevens, Devendra Banhart), there’s something unsatisfyingly generic about VanGaalen’s music, though that’s not to say Soft Airplane isn’t a likeable, consistent record. A close listen to his semi-psychedelic lyrics (“Light jumping off of the water and time in a line is swirling and swimming”) offers no particular rewards, but VanGaalen’s certainly an adept melodicist and guitar player. But there’s no sense of build and drama in the songs here: 20-second snippets sound killer, but the tunes as a whole move in ever-decreasing circles. Soft Airplane offers great promise and great disappointment at the same time.

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