Flotation Toy Warning - Bluffer's Guide To The Flight Deck Review

A PAINSTAKING MURAL OF SUBURBAN CATHARSIS

Bluffer's Guide To The Flight Deck is a sad album, but not for the reasons you'd think. Teeming with ambition, bursting at the seams even. Vintage samples, elaborate compositions, orchestral arrangements, fervent vocal performances, quirky lyrics with hints of existential blues, and epic moments dotting the entire landscape paint this as a passion project labored over for years. All for it to come and go. A blip on the radar of early 2000's Indie, buried in the shadows of giants like Arcade Fire, AIR, and Modest Mouse. Funeral would release a mere eight days later. So, it's not the music that invokes melancholy, but rather the reality of being forgotten. To toil painstakingly, release at the height of go-getter Indie Pop, only to wilt when adoration faced the opposite direction. The misfortune was immense. Flotation Toy Warning's 13-year absence - sans a 2011 single which, unsurprisingly, went by with little fanfare - reveals all that needs to be told. As is customary, time has been kind to Bluffer's Guide, as its status as cult classic continues to grow.

And what's not to like? For those with a soft spot for Beulah, The Unicorns, Fiery Furnaces, Grandaddy, and more, Flotation Toy Warning's debut ticks off all the boxes. Tracks like 'Donald Pleasance' and 'Even Fantastica' tell tragic tales over lethargic Lounge percussion, as Chamber theatrics scale like a vehement retelling of Moby Dick. Just one of these would stand as the tentpole for albums seeking apotheosis; Bluffer's Guide has half a dozen. Perhaps one could criticize the overindulgence - as seven songs escape the six-minute mark - but the variability in approach never ceases to rest. There's sleight of hand transitions like 'Fire Engine On Fire Pt. 1,' which morphs Acoustic Robot-Rock (coined, on account of the far-out samples spliced between breaths) into psychedelic Baroque Pop akin to the Four Seasons' Genuine Imitation Life Gazette. There's steady builds in 'Happy 13' and 'Even Fantastica,' the latter reaching euphoric status with electric guitars and a Flaming Lips-inspired coda. There's 'PopStar Researching Oblivion,' which starts at desperation and maintains that emotional tether throughout. There's even tracks like 'Losing California For Drusky' and 'Fire Engine On Fire Pt. 2' which save interlude-esque companion pieces for padding after the enraptured climaxes.

This is how you pace an album magnificent in scope. Never does it waver or wane, allowing for respite in the pivots between sections, which come across as either fluid or harsh given the assembling tone. Only 'Happiness Is On The Outside' lingers in dire immobility for too long, checking in as Bluffer's Guide's worst cut and, thankfully, shortest if we're to exclude the interlude 'Made From Tiny Boxes.' However it, along with the closer 'How The Plains Left Me Flat' - which partakes in some of the most offensive silence-to-hidden track ratios of the CD era - wither Bluffer's Guide's grand finale with an unceremonious fade. Thematically of course, as an aged procession with occasional relapses of swelling string sections matches Flotation Toy Warning's style aptly. It just leaves the best for the peak. But such is life.