There's an Air record you should buy, but it's not the new one. It's called Moon Safari, and for the past six years, it's provided the soundtrack to many an indie-rock love scene.

With its gently pulsating tempos, sweet vocals (mostly courtesy of relatively unknown songstress Beth Hirsch) and Air's distinctly French take on electro-pop, Moon Safari sets a mood like few other records. But even when the love has died and you're forced to split up your Sonic Youth CDs (take Sister, let her have Washing Machine), it's still a great album.

For the past six years, we've been waiting for another suitable Air long-player, and, despite signs of life in The Virgin Suicides' "Playground Love" and the Beck-penned "The Vagabond," we haven't had much success. Last year, the prettily insignificant "Alone in Kyoto" showed up in another Sofia Coppola project, the sublime Lost in Translation, and though there wasn't a whole lot to the tune, things for Air seemed promising again.

Who knew they'd base an entire album on that song?

Talkie Walkie, Air's new record, plays like a 10-track megamix of "Alone in Kyoto": sleepy, quietly melodic and astoundingly simple. If you're watching a beautifully shot scene in a movie and listening to Talkie Walkie, you may very well find yourself moved. But if you're doing anything else (and this includes driving, so be warned), you may very well find yourself unconscious.

Talkie Walkie is pretty. But it's a real yawner.

There's just no fire to be found in Talkie Walkie; the slinky, low-key bedroom vibe of Moon Safari has slowed down to a virtual halt, leaving little but some atmospheric keyboards and the band's very toneless vocals.

Even Air's odd 10,000 Hz Legend was a better record by simply making an effort. If Talkie Walkie is supposed to be a pop record, it's drowned in so much unnecessary ambience, the songs are lost before they even begin. A catchy tune like Moon Safari's "All I Need"? Nah, just some synth and some flute. Nothing to look at here. Even as ambient, it's pretty lifeless.

If you do notice anything about Talkie Walkie, you might pick up on how much it sounds like a lot of other, better things. The treated vocals and bubbling synths of "Run" rip off "Kid A" (the song, not the album) completely verbatim, and other spots are pure Spiritualized, or Boards of Canada, or The Verve. If it's not a dulled-down version of trippy Brit-rock, it's yet another superfluous take on pop-techno.

But mostly, Talkie Walkie just sounds like all those Ultimate Chill Out CDs they sell to yuppies in the cutout bins of big record stores. In other words, not the kind of work a supposedly promising band like Air should be making this far into its career.

Whatever it was about Talkie Walkie that Air wanted us to hear, it all got lost in the transmission.