When you name your record “Future Nostalgia,” it had better be really, really good or really, really bad. Unfortunately for the Sheepdogs, “Future Nostalgia” is neither, falling far short of its name’s intentions.

Let’s get one thing straight here: I want to love the Sheepdogs. The first time I heard them, in fact, I thought I did love them. The year was 2013, and I was listening to the Strokes’ Pandora station. Given my likes and dislikes, the tiny demons that operate Pandora (that’s how it works, right?) figured I would like a Sheepdogs song called “Please Don’t Lead Me On” off their 2010 album “Learn & Burn,” and they were right. Featuring a piano that is at times bright and dark, a bouncy bass line, guitars that run the gamut from a clean, trebly shimmer to an overdriven, blues-y crunch, and a central, desperate vocal pleading, “Please don’t lead me on, I just can’t take another broken heart,” it’s a brief glimpse of a man who has been destroyed by love but hasn’t given up just yet. It was magic, and I promptly purchased the record, eager to hear the rest of the music this strange Canadian band had to offer.

And, sure enough, “Learn & Burn” was a good record, but it wasn’t a great record. On the plus side, the band sounded like it had arrived via timewarp from 1975. On the minus side, the band sounded like it had arrived via timewarp from 1975. I didn’t love them just yet, but I hoped that, one day, I could grow to love them.

Interestingly enough, it was nearly possible to point to each track on the album and identify which ’70s era band had served as its inspiration. The title track, for instance, was clearly a stab at Abraxas-era Santana. Rollo Tomasi, despite its “L.A. Confidential” title, sounds like Chicago at its best, and I’m still shocked “Southern Dreaming,” with its twin guitars and laid back bass groove, isn’t a lost Allman Brothers track. It was almost like they said, ‘OK, this is our (insert ’70s band here) song,” and it worked pretty well for them.

Their latest offering, “Future Nostalgia,” seems to employ the same method at times, but with less successful results. “Jim Sullivan,” for instance, is such a complete rip-off of the Beatles’ “Dear Prudence” that I did a quick internet search to try to determine whether they had McCartney’s permission to sample it. (As far as I can tell, they did not) “Same Old Feeling” is Dylan’s “Queen Jane Approximately” without the conviction, and an alternate take on the deluxe version of the record contains all the feeling the official selection should have had.

And, like on “Learn & Burn,” the last six songs on the record are actually one long song with several movements, something that worked very well on, say, “Abbey Road,” but works less well given the way we now listen to music. I’d much rather play one nine-minute song than worry about my phone shuffling among six songs that are all interconnected. It’s annoying and confusing, and there really is no reason for it. Worst of all, those particular tracks contain some of the weakest moments on the record.

Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot to like here: the driving bass line of “Nothing All of the Time,” the reverb-soaked organ of “Darryl & Dwight,” and the bluesy sleaze of the electric piano on the deluxe version’s closer, “Have Mercy,” are all worth your time. Had the rest of the record continued along those lines, it would have surely fulfilled the promise implicit in the band’s best moments and allow me to truly say, “I love The Sheepdogs” without attaching a qualifier.