Dan Snaith, the musical artist better known as Caribou, is back with a brand new LP titled Honey. Upon listening to this effort from Caribou, an artist who has long been unafraid to step outside of the borders of his stylistic comfort zone when making a new record, it is clear that his approach to sonic development has not changed.

Nevertheless, Snaith certainly does employ some significant technique and practices on this album, and while innovation is important in art, such changes are not always for the better, and the artistic hunger for new and impactful musical improvements are not immune to false paths. In the case of this particular album, Snaith has taken his artistic process into extremely questionable waters as he has openly embraced using artificial intelligence as a tool in the creation of his music.

To many, this type of artificial assistance may be a simple and non-problematic issue. After all, Caribou is certainly not the first artist to use A.I. in his musical creation and undoubtedly will not be the last. The fact of the matter is, however, that in many other circles, A.I. is considered to be a step backward for the making of music due to a number of factors – its plagiaristic nature typically being a major one of them, and rightfully so.

Another important thing to recognize about Snaith’s use of A.I. is that, at least in terms of this project, it doesn’t seem to give him much help. Honey, whether produced in a way that is

problematic or not, simply doesn’t stand out as a particularly strong showing for Caribou. It carries a tendency to feature overly-light synths with an array of tempos that make for a rather tacky feel, such as on the project’s opening track, “Break My Heart”.

It also isn’t at all unusual to hear simplistic production throughout Honey, but often it teeters on being overly-simplistic in an undercooked way rather than by artistic intention, as it often was on the artist's prior work, such as Suddenly . For reasons such as these, it is difficult to listen to this
album without wondering – if it was necessary to use A.I. on this new Caribou record, why is the record so lacking in meat and presence in comparison to his previous works?

To Dan Snaith‘s credit, however, there are tracks on Honey that do outdo the weaker links, such as “Dear Life” and “Climbing”. These songs have an energy to them that, while not radically different from the others, stands out thanks to the more balanced and impactful nature of the instrumentation.

pre-order Honey HERE