Listening to ‘Dunes’, the second album from Santa Barbara quintet Gardens & Villa, something doesn’t quite fit. Maybe it’s that the warm, laidback, sun-drenched sounds they serve up don’t exactly match the disgracefully vicious weather continuing to taunt us here. Perhaps it’s their over-reliance on the heavy, garish kind of synths that probably should have met their demise along with the close of the ’80s twenty-four years ago. Or maybe it’s just too difficult to escape the fact that, even if you picked the record up in a fit of enthusiasm today, it’s inevitably one you could only muster up a shrug of fond indifference for in a few months time.

That’s not to say that this is a bad album. It is, instead, a mediocre one, the kind with two or three standout tracks and a bounty of fairly inoffensive filler. Synth-driven, mellow and unhurried, ‘Dunes’ is the sound of a youthful, lazy summer evening, possibly one you would have spent with some cool “indie” kids you wanted to impress without looking like you were trying too hard. And opening track Domino would do just that, a bright, balmy slice of synth served up with floaty flute solos and verging-on-falsetto vocals from singer Chris Lynch. Bullet Train passes the test as well, a more focused, forceful number polished off with synths stolen straight from the ’80s and some oddly macabre lyrics.

The problem lies in the fact that both songs finish within the first twelve minutes of the record, and there’s almost another half hour of comparatively weaker material to go; the risk of judgement or derision from the cool kids would undoubtedly begin to ride high. Although Avalanche does bring some immediacy to the mix, it’s too often countered by overly-lush and lulling tracks like Purple Mesas and the slightly tedious Chrysanthemums. Others, such as Colony Glen and the awfully-named Echosassy, fall back to the apparently default “let’s add more synth!” position, and the lack of variety does become draining. Yet, when they do step away from the much-loved synthesizers, such as during the piano-led Minnesota, things quickly descend into the bland and forgettable, so there is perhaps an argument to be made for their fondness of their particular musical calling.

The album ends with the instrumental Love Theme, and it’s here that that sense of things not feeling quite right sets in most strongly. If you can produce a track that sounds like it was written for an overwrought and underwhelming ’80s made-for-TV movie and not realize that that’s a bad thing, something’s obviously gone a little wrong. ‘Dunes’ won’t stand the test of time because it owes too much to a time that’s already long passed. And while trying to rejuvenate that sound is fine, leaning on it as heavily as Gardens & Villa do here, while not out-rightly terrible, is a bit tiring. There is promise and potential here though; just more Domino‘s and less Love Theme‘s next time, please.