hile the morning dew might open Trentemøller’s album, The Last Resort, it’s the bassline that really wakes “Take Me Into Your Skin.” Sure, it’s a cribbed and blunted version of the Junior Boy’s “Birthday” bass-driven wiggle, but the bassline gives direction to a song all too willing to blur it away otherwise. The sighs, chimes, and billowing expanses prod along in a pleasant enough fashion, but the bass hones the song and gives “Take Me Into Your Skin” a weight far beyond its series of listless whispers. Without it, it plays timid and awkward. With it, surprisingly enough, it works.

That seems to be the line that Trentemøller is willing to walk for his debut album. The Last Resort is reserved, always gently building toward some sort of featherbed in the sky—a goal that Trentemøller has never shown much interest in pursuing before. His earlier singles have always been tinged by panic and confinement. Trentemøller, the spelunker, was consistently good. With each production and remix, the malleability of Trentemøller’s textures has become his obvious strength, adeptly hop-scotching through genres without a dust of chalk on his shoe. Trentemøller, the sky-hopper, is far less nimble.

As a result, songs with titles like “While the Cold Winter Waiting” and “Snowflake” hardly stray far from what you’d expect. Both songs are destined to accompany your favorite slow-motion videos—static like they’d been left out to dry in the cold. Møller’s determination to maintain a mood throughout the album might have had him invest too much time on these clunkers, but even they serve a purpose. Taken as palate cleanser, the meandering “Snowflakes” effectively plays into the pummeling and Basic Channel-channeling “Into the Trees.”

Trentemøller pulls the trick again with “Take Me Into Your Skin”’s naiveté and the dirty bass-hook on “Vamp,” all but stealing the former’s innocence. The same goes for “Evil Dub,” which spends the first half of its six minute length ebbing away at the distance, only to be stunningly rebuilt around the directness of “Vamp”’s fuzz-riff mold. Even the plaintive closer “Miss You” doesn’t rely on ripples or trembles to milk the melancholy—its steadiness is effective in and of itself.

Trentemøller was known for this same unflinching steadiness with his earlier singles, and thankfully many of these are on a limited edition bonus disc—providing stark relief from the waver that haunts The Last Resort. Rather than rely on his understated and atmospheric palette, the album sounds like a series of forced conflicts and resolutions set to an amiable drone. Which isn’t bad, but too often makes you wish for a little less drama in your life.