The overarching artistic goal of Ontario-based duo Memoryhouse has never really been in doubt. The clues are all there: their origins as an audiovisual project for a start, with Evan Abeele’s compositions set to Denise Nouvion’s hazy photography. Then there’s the band’s name, taken from Max Richter’s neoclassical masterpiece, an album that managed to evoke the feeling of flipping through a forgotten photo album, digging up dusty images of the past.

And let’s not forget the title of the band’s full-length debut for Sub Pop, The Slideshow Effect, which references a camera technique that slowly zooms into a still image to imbue it with some movement, some life. All in all, it seems pretty clear that Memoryhouse want to make pictures with sound, and to achieve what Max Richter pulled off with the band’s namesake record – nostalgia. Instant, inexplicable nostalgia.

The pair’s 2010 EP The Years was a valiant attempt, Nouvion’s voice drifting over hushed layers of dreamy guitar and piano lines drenched in reverb. After two years of touring and songwriting before hitting the studio to record The Slideshow Effect, fans will be hoping that Memoryhouse have truly hit their stride and that their debut LP presents the comprehensive version of the band’s M.O.

Alas, two years of work appears to have done The Slideshow Effect no favours. The fuzzy edges of The Years have been shaved away in favour of a well-produced but curiously inert 10-track set. Where Memoryhouse’s EP felt intimate, their LP’s full-band sound and clean production never really connects. Tracks like opener ‘Little Expressionless Animals’ and ‘Walk With Me’ aim for woozy dream pop, but without that emotional connection they just end up sleepwalking. Nouvion’s voice, which was well-suited to being half-submerged in the hazy mix, has now been shoved, shivering, into the spotlight; and her detached, almost mechanical delivery just isn’t up to the task of pulling us in.

Nouvion and Abeele have incorporated a clutch of new sounds into their world, for the most part skilfully. The album certainly doesn’t lack for pretty moments. ‘Punctum’ and fireside ballad ‘Bonfire’ demonstrate the band’s ear for simple, charming alt.folk, while the ‘The Kids Were Wrong’ brings a welcome skip to the album’s step with its buoyant beat and a melody that mixes Fleetwood Mac and ’80s indie jangle to pleasing effect. ‘Kinds of Light’ even shares some of the fragile, candlelit energy that made The Years stand out. But even the album’s best moments can’t disguise the lack of spark at its centre.

Listening to The Slideshow Effect, you can’t help but feel that Memoryhouse may have walked away from their natural path and into an arena to which they’re not suited. Granted, The Years’ charms were subtle, and it’s understandable that Memoryhouse have reached for a bigger engine to drive their sound forward. But in slamming too hard on the accelerator, Abeele and Nouvion might have inadvertently swerved into the middle of the road.