I’ll be honest: I’ve never been a big Daft Punk fan. Sure, it’s made a handful of great songs (“One More Time,” “Da Funk,” “High Life”), but much of its work is frustratingly one-dimensional. While the energy from a rapturous crowd can render a lack of imagination irrelevant, Daft Punk doesn’t have that luxury in the studio. As much as it fusses over every sonic detail, many of its songs need the visual splendor of its legendary light pyramid.

But “Random Access Memories” was supposed to be different. Implicitly billed as the “event” album of the year through a brilliant marketing campaign, it would reestablish the album as the kind of communal experience that has been lost in the Spotify era. Billboards, TV spots, magazine covers—it was an analog throwback in a digital age. Yet in a way, it felt oddly progressive. Daft Punk wasn’t going to fight file sharing and streaming with lawsuits and holdouts; it was going to make you notice its album amidst the veritable torrent of information available on the Internet. You wouldn’t just want “Random Access Memories;” you would need it to be part of the cultural conversation.

Sadly, the album itself was not nearly worth the months of anticipation. It may have integrated the best recording equipment modern technology has to offer with some of the most renowned session musicians of decades past, but method alone does not guarantee results. Yes, it sounds expensive, but in a stifling, aren’t-you-impressed manner. Daft Punk takes so much pleasure in the infinite possibilities awarded by its enormous recording budget that it seemingly forgets that it’s writing songs. Try as they might to bring life back to music, these songs sound as stiff and lifeless as the robotic voices that inexplicably handle many of their hooks.

While “Random Access Memories” was supposed to evoke the excitement and grandiosity of the ’70s event album, it instead embodies the worst of double-LP excess. Ultimately, it suffocates under the weight of its own self-importance, leaving no room for the risk-taking necessary to sustain a 74-minute record. For all the fuss critics have made about the album’s journey through the history of electronic music, Daft Punk seems to have skipped over the 21st century—which couldn’t be more fitting—as it’s long dealt in a retro pastiche that was largely ignored outside of the electronic dance music community until irony became cool.

Daft Punk’s best songs take one great idea and repeat it ad infinitum until you become lost in an ecstatic fervor. The problem with this album is that the songs don’t have many compelling ideas. When they do, as on the infectious “Get Lucky,” the results are more satisfying than just about anything in the current pop landscape—which makes the album all the more frustrating. There are moments of potential brilliance scattered throughout, but all too often, Daft Punk is content to settle into extended downtempo jams, letting the high-end production overwhelm the listener with its glossy sheen.

What we’re left with is a hulking testament to the dangers of artistic hubris seriously lacking in anything innovative or daring. Daft Punk remains stuck in the past, futilely attempting to bring back the supposed glory of yesteryear one more time.