Once you stop giggling about their name, Flotation Toy Warning’s debut Bluffer’s Guide to the Flight Deck will unscrew you from your head and leave you floating out by Neptune. It’s that kind of album. It demands your attention and it rewards you for it. Like all good music, there is always more to find inside. Because of that, because it is epic and large (you have the feeling it is spreading as you listen, sweeping out to engulf you) it may inspire, more than an immediate enthusiasm, a more religious, almost solemn, following.
With that comes its flip side – people call them “avant pop,” and it makes them sound pretentious. They do their best to pierce this with a bit of goofing around, but there’s no avoiding the grandiosity of the music. There’s also no reason to apologize for it. Like the Taj Mahal, successful grandiosity is just grand.
Their music is composed and performed with care; it’s full of shimmering organ chords, stately drums, and angelic choirs. There’s enough creaky, odd instrumentation to make the fictional instruments they mention (the ‘stair horn’) seem believable.
All of this is made human by the wistful, sometimes amused vocals. Think of Sigur Rós with warm blood and a wink. Bluffer’s Guide feels at times so exquisitely created, so perfect, that when the final note is balanced on its end, you feel reluctant to move for fear of breaking the spell.
– Tom Vale
Flotation Toy Warning (Pointy Records)