Ben Folds’ newest album, “So There,” finds Folds exploring a new direction in the orchestral whimsy of chamber pop. Calling the album new may seem misleading, however, as it applies only to Folds’ own career, rather than the direction of his music as a whole. In fact, at its best, the album sounds like an approximation of Illinois-era Sufjan Stevens. Album-opener “Capable of Anything,” borrows directly from “The Predatory Wasp of The Palisades Is Out To Get Us” in its prominent use of flittering flutes and somber strings. Another example of similarity to Stevens is noticeable in the centerpiece single, “Phone In A Pool,” with its string-plucked melody suspiciously close to that of the seasonal-affective, “Did I Make You Cry On Christmas Day? (Well, You Deserved It!)” The song is nevertheless catchy, charismatic and cinematic.

Thematically, Folds treads new water for him as an artist. In comparison, Radiohead has long been the technophobic monarch of rock, while Arcade Fire’s stellar “Reflektor” dealt deeply in the psychological and interpersonal effects of the rise of the Internet and the proliferation of social media. Folds attempts something similar, but his phone chucking and thumb-tapped notes seem more like the complaints of an old curmudgeon unwilling to conform to the modern age, rather than explorations of our relationship to technology. What lies at the heart of this record, though, is Folds’ bread and butter: self-deprecation. True to form, he hides behind humor in painting himself as a middle-aged man-child with a love for malt whiskey and a propensity for pushing others away. What remains fresh about this, besides puns about Chinese phone books and his weight problem, is that Folds seems stuck between wanting to change on “Long Way to Go” and accepting his inability to in “Phone In A Pool.”

As derivative as it is at times, Folds’ new record still admirably demonstrates those characteristics that earned him alt-rock fame in the mid-2000s. He’s still funny, he’s still complicated, but his powers for observation have waned in comparison to his former glory on “Rockin’ the Suburbs.” As a whole, “So There” is a pedestrian record. It has its moments of humour and its instances of insight, but those leave something to be desired in a record so driven by lyrical focus and the temperament of its creator.

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