** 1/2 AIR, “10,000 Hz. Legend,” Astralwerks

When Air’s breakthrough album, the wonderful “Moon Safari,” came out in 1998, the French duo of Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel became leaders of a movement to rediscover the joys of ‘70s mood rock and the almighty Vocoder. Suddenly, it was cool again to list Pink Floyd, the Alan Parsons Project or, for that matter, the theme from “Hill Street Blues” among your personal favorites. Being slightly goofy, Air seemed to imply, was a good thing.

Air’s follow-up (due in stores Tuesday) suggests that “Moon Safari” might have been a bit of a lucky gimmick. On most of the carefully recorded, elaborate soundscapes, Air seems to be trying too hard to sound like Air.

There’s beauty to spare in some of these tracks. But even the clever references are a little too obvious this time around. For instance, if you go to your dusty prog-rock collection, you might find the exact melody of the bucolic “Radian” in an album by the obscure British band Camel, circa 1975.

This time around, the fun is mostly limited to identifying bits and pieces of music and connecting them to their original sources, be it from the Air canon, Ennio Morricone or decades-old German electronica. Not a good sign for a band as young and talented as this one.

*

Albums are rated on a scale of one star (poor), two stars (fair), three stars (good) and four stars (excellent). The albums are already released unless otherwise noted.