Weekly Release Spotlight: The Fiery Furnaces
Posted on 8/09/2009
The Fiery Furnaces
I'm Going Away
[Thrill Jockey]
They say twins can communicate telepathically, and sometimes even create their own language that no one else can decipher. While siblings and Fiery Furnaces creative forces Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger aren't twins, they obviously have some sort of telepathic bond (or a genetic predisposition) that leads them to create the music they do. The duo's idiosyncratic lyrics and oblique tempo changes make up their sibling language, and they don't really care if you can understand it or not (you probably can't).
On I'm Going Away, the duo continues moving in a direction they did with 2007's Widow City - some of the songs sound like actual songs. While the album dives right in to typical Furnaces territory with the off-kilter rhythm of the title track, the second song, "Drive to Dallas," is far more approachable than anything the band has ever done, even considering a trademark frenzied change of tempo toward the end. "Lost at Sea" and "The End is Near" are about as straightforward as they come and channel the later, quieter years of Pavement. Nonsense (and to fans, familiarity) returns on "Charmaine Champagne" with Eleanor's meandering descriptions of (presumably) imaginary characters and adventures telling the music where to go, not the other way around.
It's Eleanor's vocals combined with those counterintuitive rhythms that have polarized listeners since the band's 2003 debut. But what makes the band even more of an enigma is that we know both siblings are capable of accessibility. Matthew's 2006 solo release, Winter Women, was more pop-oriented than any of the work he's released with his sister, and Eleanor's contributing vocals on Les Savy Fav’s Let’s Stay Friends sounded - for lack of a better term - like normal singing. But put the two together, and they can't help but revert back to that secret sibling language and to being blissfully oblivious to what people think of them. While their compositions may naturally become more palatable as time goes on, they're still unwilling to compromise their collective vision for accessibility.
Stream: The Fiery Furnaces - The End is Near
Written by Dana Raidt, Radio K volunteer.