By Doran Walot

FEIST “THE REMINDER” POLYDOR

The problem with Leslie Feist’s new album is right there in the title. The opener (“So Sorry”) sounds like a Norah Jones castoff. The fourth track, “The Park,” is a dead ringer for Iron and Wine. The sixth (“Sealion,” apparently a Nina Simone interpretation) sounds like the Killers’ attempt at gospel. So on, so forth. But Feist excels at taking risks (see a previous album half-filled with covers), and many of them pay off here (“My Moon My Man,” especially, displaying the potential for widespread, Starbucks appeal). Still, for all of its kid-friendly dad-folk (“The Park”), hipster-approved bop (“Past in Present”), and beach-ready bounce (“I Feel It All”), there’s a lot more general-anesthetic music (“How My Heart Behaves”) dragging down the album. You can’t help but feel that there’s one absolutely brilliant album stretched into this and 2004’s Let It Die, which featured the near-perfect “Mushaboom” and . . . not much else worth remembering. The voice is there, the lyrics are there, but the consistency isn’t. Reminder is a good fit for shuffling on your iPod, but you won’t head straight to it more than once.