Despite the fantastical back story they’ve dreamed up for themselves – one which features a rotating cast of flying machine test pilots, Italian inventors, rare butterfly collectors, astrophysicists and Chinese translators – Flotation Toy Warning aren’t nearly as inventive when it comes to their supposed forte, electro-orchestral indie pop. Bluffer’s Guide to the Flight Deck, the London quintet’s debut album, amalgamates sonic elements of The Flaming Lips, Grandaddy and Neutral Milk Hotel, as well as tamer and more syrupy britpop bands such as Embrace and Coldplay, yet it does so without taking that amalgamation anywhere special.

Not that the music isn’t beautiful. In many places it is just that: moving, sensuous, dreamlike, romantic stuff. “Popstar Researching Oblivion,” with its psychedelic choir intro, and the exquisite loneliness of “Losing Carolina; For Drusky” are perfect examples of the musical bliss that FTW can achieve, though at times that bliss can tread palpably close to schmaltz. What really fetters each and every one of these songs – that is, aside from the stultifying sameness that sets in the longer the disc plays – are the lyrics. The ham-fisted attempts at cleverness and the deliberate surrealism (and when those fall short, as on the opener “Happy 13,” there are some even worse reversions to cliché) make the absurdity of the lyrics meaningless rather than poetic. The relatively brief hidden tracks following “How the Plains Left Me Flat” are pure self-indulgence – more absurd lyrics, ambient noises – and not worth skipping through the silence or hanging around for.

There are certainly parts to savor during the first spin, but if Bluffer’s Guide to the Flight Deck leaves any kind of aftertaste it’s a fleeting and synthetic one. The forced quirkiness, from the two-part “Fire Engine on Fire” to the mere title of the disc, and the overall mediocrity of the lyrics and their delivery, keep this otherwise enjoyable debut from being anything like outstanding.