Manitoba (noun)

1. A province in central Canada.
2. Dick Manitoba, from the band The Dictators, a musical nobody who's main claim to fame is suing Dan Snaith.
3. The former name of Caribou.

I'm not really all that fond of name changes by bands. I feel that when a band or a musician picks a name to release music under, they should stick by it. Look at the whole Shihad/Pacifier fiasco of a few years ago, there were no winners there, and eventually the band realised it was such a bad idea that they switched back. Dan Snaith, having been served legal papers, obviously didn't have that much of a choice in the renaming of his band, but by switching to the name Caribou, he's cut off a lot of the history that he's built up for himself, and for a moment, placed his music in a space without any context.

That's not to say that "The Milk of Human Kindness", the third proper album from Manitoba/Caribou is no good. In fact, it may be one of the best electronic albums released this year. Snaith is obviously uncomfortable sticking to one style for too long, and while the difference between "Up In Flames" and this album isn't nearly as pronounced as the difference between "Up In Flames" and "Start Breaking My Heart", there is still quite a radical reinvention of sound. The psychedelia of the last album has all but disappeared, and been replaced with a more focused, more deliberate sound.

Opening track Yeti both showcases Snaith's unique style and shows how he's changed his sound. A percussive cacophony starts things off, before some ethereal vocals and a keyboard enter into the mix, giving the song some definition. It's at the two minute mark though, when some muscled drums kick in, giving his music some muscle and drive that it's never had before, that you truly begin to see Snaith beginning to diverge from his usual pattern. Whereas a lot of his previous music was essentially passive and tranquil, the music on "The Milk of Human Kindness" goes out of its way to grab you by the neck and draw you in.

The third track, entitled A Final Warning, is another divergence from what I was expecting. Rather than a smooth, blissed-out tune in the vein of Sway or Hammock, it almost seems to want to be abrupt and rough, featuring layered Gregorian chanting and generous amounts of feedback. It's unusual, even by Snaith's standards, but despite this it stands out as one of the best songs on the album. Hello Hammerheads is another surprise, being a fully-fledged folk song, complete with the acoustic guitar and numb lyrics. Unlike many of Snaith's other musical appropriations, there is no sense of gentle fun in the track, it's just the sound of an electronic music artist trying his hand at something different, and nailing it perfectly. The fact that he sounds just as good behind an acoustic guitar as he does behind a laptop and some computer software points to intriguing possibilities in the future for Caribou.

Despite the name change, "The Milk of Human Kindness" is another impressive release from an artist who never seems to fail to impress. Even though it is a lot more direct, dragging you into its world rather than luring you in gently, it's still no less a triumph. Never mind any legal shenanigans involving long-forgotten dinosaur-rockers, Dan Snaith is still making some of the best and most relevant music so far of the 21st century.