It’s been four years since Kimbra released The Golden Echo, her audacious and futuristic second album, one that established her beyond just the other voice on Gotye’s 2012 hit “Somebody That I Used to Know.” That LP further ensconced the New Zealander born Kimbra Lee Johnson as a one-woman odd-pop machine; a producer, an arranger, a multi-instrumentalist, and a unique dynamo vocalist. Oddly, there has been little fanfare around the release of its follow-up Primal Heart.

Perhaps tellingly, this album comes at a transitional point in her live show. Kimbra has pared down her prior set-up with a full band to just a small rig where she programs beats alongside only two shrouded players. Her intention is to arrive at a simplistic core, relying majorly upon digital sounds. Outside of tour, she’s built her own studio in her new home of New York (since The Golden Echo, she’s moved from Los Angeles) and she’s further indulged her technical geekery alongside co-producer John Congleton, known for his work with St. Vincent and Nelly Furtado, among others.

Kimbra insists that she’s given herself time for a more vulnerable phase of artistic growth. Her intention has been to strip away the bombast and locate her raw essence, hence the title Primal Heart. The results show that she’s still unable to let her ideas breathe without suffocating them beneath layers of quirks and tricks. Despite the protracted process, the album sounds like a work that’s stuck between two places; reaching for a larger audience but clinging on to her offbeat nuances. In its quieter minutes, even Kimbra seems to have realized this. “Version of Me,” a standout, is a soft ballad that positions Kimbra at her most exposed. She sings about the human truth of never being the finished article. “There’s a better version of myself/Stay for the person I’ll be,” she pleads of a love interest. She could be asking the same question of her audience, or even of herself.

Primal Heart is a collision of hard electronics with light sprinkles of au courant R&B making for Kimbra’s most mainstream statement yet. And though she’s described her approach in making this album as being one of “radical fearlessness,” the album contains only a few moments of power. On lead single “Everybody Knows,” she sings with great conviction about being “young and gullible.” It’s the sonic accompaniment to a Tumblr post she wrote last October about experiences she and friends have had as women in studio environments. Conversely on “Human,” she juxtaposes that individualism by pining for another’s affections and validation to survive. The track happily reinvents a classic soul sound with little percussive ticks and booms, providing strong evidence of what Primal Heart can be when the songs are restricted in scope and home in on one intention.

However, her most ambitious efforts don’t quite reach their apex, causing her somewhat cocky assertions to land flat. On “Top of the World,” she semi-raps over a Skrillex-assisted beat that builds to a climax about limitless success. “Talk like I be the Messiah,” she says, with excessive hubris. It’s the kind of statement you want to root for by such a hugely talented artist. Her vocal delivery, however, isn’t fierce enough to pull it off. Other than a few attention-grabbing choruses, the results are largely limp.