With their elegantly sparse instrumentation and haunting vocals, the New York folk-rock quartet Ida clearly possesses talent and ability. Unfortunately, their latest release, the sleepy Will You Find Me, proves to be largely forgettable. Despite the fact there’s nothing about the album to hate, there’s also nothing to inspire anyone falling in love with it, either.

While it is hard to fault a band that is obviously dedicated to creating such beautiful music, Ida doesn’t succeed in holding the listener’s attention for long. Will You Find Me floats along too evenly, never rising above its status as simple, pleasant music. Beautiful it may be, but remarkably enough, it’s also uninteresting.

All the songs’ lyrics are centered on one form of dysfunctional love or another, but no real pain is communicated. Much like the music itself, the lyrics are a bit too mild to be engaging. There’s some pretty moments here, though, such as the sweet “The Radiator” (“I could watch you sleep for hours / Without noticing that it’s getting really late”) and the light-hearted “Firefly” (“Only a fool tries to follow the light of a firefly”). Overall, however, most of Ida’s lyrics fade from memory as soon as the song is over.

For all of its flaws, Will You Find Me does have its share of bright spots, including the soft noisy groove of “Shrug” and the bright piano melody of “Man In Mind.” And strangely enough, some of the more intriguing moments on Will You Find Me occur in the spaces between songs. These moments of quiet sonic exploration prove Ida to be a more exciting band than the rest of songs on Will You Find Me would indicate.

Ida’s Will You Find Me is in no way horrible, but it just merely exists. As albums go, this is unchallenging in every possible way, and makes it too easy to listen to. It is a shame that such talent and beauty is wasted in the creation of such nothing music.