Lowly's "Heba"(Photo: Bella Union)

If there can be too many cooks in the kitchen, it stands to reason there can be too many musicians in the studio.

Danish quintet Lowly has a little too much going with the new Heba, the young bands debut since coming together in 2014 after meeting at a music academy in Aarhus, Denmark.

The five members Nanna Schannong (vocals, guitar), Soffie Viemose (vocals, laptop), Kasper Staub (synthesizers), Thomas Lund (bass, Moog) and Steffen Lundtoft (drums, percussion) obviously take themselves seriously as they indulge in their soundscapes, and their electronic-based arrangements often result in beguiling atmosphere.

But the formlessness can be irritating with continuity in short supply, and too often Lowly sounds more like a collection of five one-person acts than a congruous five-person band. As a result, the track Word feels like a theatrical jumble, the group seems both frenetic and bored on Prepare the Lake, and the fractured Mornings sounds like someone is playing an old-school video game during a sci-fi movie while an irregular beat rumbles in the background.

Yet Schannong and Viemose are alluringly poised and disconnected vocalists, and the layered instrumentation often dovetails into something both offbeat and special. Obscure lines such as, Could someone save the baby? (Deer Eyes) pop out on a foundation of vibrating bass and, Im the only one to witness your downfall (Still Life) bend around rubbery electronic nuance.

Also, aimlessness periodically suits Lowly, whether its the jazz-flavored Pommerate suspended in space, Look at the Sun adrift on a sea of gurgling electro-pop or Cait #2 simply floating in focused ambience.

So ultimately Heba is even more dreamlike than most music labeled as dreamy: Its surreal and alternately comforting and confusing and much of it is hard to remember, which might be just as well.

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Music review: Lowly's chemistry goes awry on 'Heba' - Knoxville News Sentinel