With their bright, upbeat sound, cutsie lyrics and diverse range of instrumentals, The Crayon Set seem to tick all of the required indie pop boxes. While there is clearly a lot of talent on display on the Dublin-based eight piece’s debut album, it is exactly this element of box-ticking which makes this collection of music seem a little forced.

With eight multi-instrumentalist members, ‘The Crayon Set’ sees a wide, eclectic rage of instruments deployed across its twelve tracks.  Trumpet, double bass, violin, harmonium, oboe, flute, banjo all make appearances alongside more traditional guitars and drums. Unfortunately these different instruments often end up butting in unexpectedly and then fading out again just when they’ve found a place to fit into the song, only to be replaced by something else equally incongruous. Tracks like Breakdown and Smalltown Kids end up feeling cluttered with unnecessary asides.

Meanwhile the trading off of lead vocals leaves The Crayon Set seeming like a band without a clear central figure or focal point. While K+J=0 uses alternating male and female vocals to tell two perspectives of a love story, I Worry feels overloaded with vocals, sapping the song of a clear direction. At times it feels like there was some elements of compromise involved in this record’s production, as if everyone had to have their moment in the spotlight. When a different instrument suddenly jumps to the front it feels perfunctory.

Not that ‘The Crayon Set’ doesn’t have occasional flashes of brilliance. K+J=0 has some wonderfully offbeat lyrical twists on a familiar subject, with lines like “She’d use her breasts and show some flesh/ This would help him focus”. As the album floats into its closing moments, The Art of Letting Go makes use of tender acoustic lilt that is almost country to showcase what the group can do with stripped back simplicity, while Drifting Closer to the Sun injects some much-needed pace into things, finally delivering a song with a genuine edge.

The Crayon Set may be very talented musicians, but their debut album drives a little too carefully and a little too aimlessly along the main street of indie town without ever taking a detour into anything genuinely alternative. If the songs were just a little more catchy this might not even be a problem, but The Crayon Set are no Little Green Cars. ‘The Crayon Set’ is a docile yet cheery album that offers a pleasant, unchallenging listening experience , but there isn’t anything here to mark the group out as your new favourite band.