In some private calculus, Plastic Chord never add up to the sum of their many, many mischievous parts—which is to say they might have more talent than they know what to do with: you'd think an eight-member quirk-pop troupe might operate on the kind of bold mission statement that flies or flops on the strength of conviction (see the occasionally clunky yet oddly incendiary output of The Starlight Mints). But this Twin Cities collective perhaps doesn't trust their instincts so blindly, resulting in a reserved product that you could just as easily call timid.

Don't get me wrong; there's a lot to like in a song like "Mirrors for Princes," a Machiavellian plot that unfolds in the reflective neon funhouse of modern celebrity, replete with nifty post-punk stops and starts and angular slices of guitar. Moving between the spiky set pieces, however, takes a nuance not readily deployed. "Umbrella Oil" follows, almost reaching its conclusion before realizing it wants to be a keyboard-bopping, horn-blatting Shins kock-off. "Upside Down" is the early highlight, a restless tune that recruits whirligig organ and what sounds like Southern Comfort in the form of slide guitar. It's catchy, but the digressions are rote—no sooner do Plastic Chord pick up some toy (a folksy synth here, a xylophone there) than toss it aside. Closer "The Lower Denominator" tries to be anything but by lacing its sticky acoustic elegy with distracting electronic squirts. Like much of Colonial Conundrum, it ignores what makes such rococo detail successful: an awareness of the architecture under all that prankster's decoration.