On its fourth full-length LP, "Dope Machines," released today, The Airborne Toxic Event has shifted from a guitar-driven rock band to one that leans more heavily on pop and electronics.

If you're looking for anthemic choruses and soaring guitars in the form of "Wishing Well," "Sometime Around Midnight," it's not here. The songs on "Dope Machines" are more in the form of the 2011 single "Changing" and the 2013 single "Timeless," with the guitars dialed back and the keyboards and electronic drums brought to the forefront.

There are some catchy choruses peppered throughout, but they're tucked in the middle of layers of sound. And that's the problem with "Dope Machines." It's mostly impersonal, and so restrained that it's sleepy at points.

Nearly half of this record had been released in singles over the past few months. Two of those songs, the bookends "Wrong" and "Chains," are the best on the record.

Between are two sets of songs that sound awfully similar – first, a set of five chilled, slower paced rock songs, the best of which is "Time to be a Man," and the second a trilogy of ballads that see the record reach its low point, the clunky "My Childish Bride."

Give credit to The Airborne Toxic Event for the change of direction. But with "Dope Machines" the band has plotted a safe course that doesn't take the listener anywhere truly awful, but doesn't take them anywhere particularly interesting, either.