Grade: B- | The music on Aqualung’s latest release is bold and cinematic, just like the black-and-white photo on the album’s front cover.

“Memory Man”‘s 11 songs couple dry, gray-sounding, yet beautiful piano melodies with thumping programmed drum sounds, creating an abstract, empty sound that provides the perfect foil for Matt Hales’ submerged vocals. The album’s opener “Cinderella” plays like a soundtrack for the deep sea: dark, cold and mysterious.

Hales’ vocals finally come up for air on the next track, “Pressure Suit,” a hypnotic song with sharp, stabbing piano lines and crackling vocals that sound like they are coming out of an AM radio. A ringing electric guitar finds its way onto the upbeat “Something to Believe In,” and the electronic drums throb harder and louder on “Vapour Trail,” bringing the first half of the album to a subtle close.

The second half of “Memory Man” is where things get interesting. The driving “Rolls So Deep” boasts power drums and chiming pianos that sound like they were taken directly off of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run” album. “The Lake” is a stripped-down song with a great circular piano melody and quaint, floating vocals, while “Black Hole” features a busy, ringing bass sliding over a cracking snare drum sound. The album returns to the thin, bizarre AM radio vocals of “Broken Bones” before coming to an end.

The great use of dynamics on “Memory Man” make it seem much more complex than it really is. The songs may not be legendary, but Hales’ freewheeling approach keeps the album interesting.