Nightlight tries hard to be uplifting, but unless you stay emotionally afloat via a steady diet of shopworn clichés and Dr. Phil, expect more sugar pill than ecstasy. Culling the confectionary delights of West Coast '60s pop and back-patting optimism, this third album from Barenaked Ladies keyboardist Kevin Hearn plays like a horseback ride with the executive board of Therapy.com. Luckily, Hearn enlists the help of Thin Buckle, whose unerring rhythms at least make for a musical backdrop that's as tight as a snare drum head, giving the proceedings a relentlessly professional sheen. Early tracks like "Ball of Twine", "Lost and Stolen" and especially "Here Come the Chimebell Trains" maintain a steady, upbeat candor that's lively, if nowhere near enervating, but as the album progresses, tempos slow and instrumentals lapse into more and more relaxed arrangements. The culmination of this drift is the wholly regrettable cover of "War Pigs", which removes all the indelible antagonism of the Black Sabbath original, leaving a flaccid, lupine spectre with emphysema and bad aim. In Hearn's words, Nightlight's theme is that "life goes on" (a nightlight "goes on" too -- get it?), but who needs to be reminded via such unflinchingly saccharine packaging?