More crooked sons of bitches you can't ever have come across
My beloved Sound Fix put the Fiery Furnaces' Widow City on their shelves a little early so I got that on the way home and I'm listening to it and I like it no matter what Marisa says. But I'm surprised by the reivews calling it their most conventional rock release. That would still be EP, which has a shocking number of verse-chorus, four-minutes-and-out arrangements. On Widow City there's still plenty of characteristic rambling, but it's faster and crisper rambling than the keyboardy noodling that weighs down Blueberry Boat and the first few songs from last year's Bitter Tea. Widow City starts off strong and eventually grows a little wearying, a reversal of Bitter Tea, which starts off difficult and gets progressively more varied and welcoming. But part of the fun of listening to the Fiery Furnaces is digging around for the lovely songs the Friedbergers sometimes bury under all of the weirdness. (Except on Blueberry Boat, where you dig and dig, rest for awhile, dig more until your arms hurt, and when you find something awesome it buries itself in more keyboard mashing and improvised-sounding tempo changes.) I won't really know how I feel about it for another month and I enjoy that elusive quality. And "The Philadelphia Grand Jury" and "Duplexes of the Dead" and "Automatic Husband" are all definitely awesome.
Incidentally, I noticed on the album credits that Matthew Friedberger does the lion's share of songwriting on this and the last few Furnaces releases. I guess that accounts for Eleanor's detached vocal style, but it's odd that Matthew writes so much first-person narrative for his sister (and yet sings on their albums less and less).
In a misguided bid for completist status, I also bought Sound Fix's used copy of Rehearsing My Choir (aka Old Grandma Blues per Chris and I'm not sure if the actual Fiery Furnaces have ever come up with a better album title than that). Frankly, that was probably bad idea but I'm curious about what an "unlistenable" FF album might sound like. I guess at some point I will try it out. I noticed, actually, that a complete pre-Widow City discography was available on the Sound Fix used shelf. That copy of Choir has been there for months (I've picked it up and put it down probably three or four times) but I think the rest came back together. Awww.
This PM, from cake at work to early Fiery Furnaces to exercise to making dinner, has been a good one and I owe it all to not having to go to class. Cheers, Columbus.
Incidentally, I noticed on the album credits that Matthew Friedberger does the lion's share of songwriting on this and the last few Furnaces releases. I guess that accounts for Eleanor's detached vocal style, but it's odd that Matthew writes so much first-person narrative for his sister (and yet sings on their albums less and less).
In a misguided bid for completist status, I also bought Sound Fix's used copy of Rehearsing My Choir (aka Old Grandma Blues per Chris and I'm not sure if the actual Fiery Furnaces have ever come up with a better album title than that). Frankly, that was probably bad idea but I'm curious about what an "unlistenable" FF album might sound like. I guess at some point I will try it out. I noticed, actually, that a complete pre-Widow City discography was available on the Sound Fix used shelf. That copy of Choir has been there for months (I've picked it up and put it down probably three or four times) but I think the rest came back together. Awww.
This PM, from cake at work to early Fiery Furnaces to exercise to making dinner, has been a good one and I owe it all to not having to go to class. Cheers, Columbus.