As The Fiery Furnaces, Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger have always sat at the kitchen table somewhere just outside of normal. The Brooklyn brother and sister duo started out playing garage blues and have ventured through some truly distinctive musical territory, including recording an album with their grandmother’s narration and launching the 70s-rock-fuelled Widow City.
For some, the restless and gifted Furnaces are just not all that accessible. It’s true that their brand of music takes some getting used to. The spiralling arrangements, swift shifts in not just tempo but entire song structure, and maddeningly verbose vocal arrangements can be a little hard to take.
Their latest, I’m Going Away, still contains the madness we’ve come to expect, but there’s something generally more reachable and more gleeful about these songs. Think of it as jukebox piano pop with charred guitar edges.
The unpredictable, inexplicably beautiful structures are still present of course. But The Fiery Furnaces have infused their brand of jumbled volatility with something, well hell, catchy. I’m Going Away is actually filled with fucking pop songs!
Case in point: the charmingly bubbly “Even in the Rain.” Punchy piano melts together with smart guitar to create a melody that shifts upwards and downwards elegantly, forming something magical and hopeful that belongs on a Highway 61 tribute album.
Then there’s the urgent lunacy of the title track, ripping through its paces like a wobbly old car without brakes.
The soft, silver-tongued piano furrow of “The End is Near” introduces a piece that really is about endings, after all. With much of I’m Going Away about hard times and dark clouds, this song’s collapse and Eleanor’s refusal to “reminisce” offers elegant release.
Listening to The Fiery Furnaces has always been, for me at least, about the prospect to engage in something truly incomparable. The Friedbergers keenly fold songs and melodies within other songs and melodies, placing those in still more songs and melodies. While other acts might fail with such a coated, fidgety approach, the sincerity of The Fiery Furnaces and their addiction to the craft of songwriting keeps things interesting and ultimately gripping.
Considering I’m Going Away as a somewhat basic approach to their usual technique, then, is a trick in and of itself.
The record proves Eleanor and Matthew as master songwriters capable of damn near anything, standing as a part of their remarkable catalogue as both a throwback to the unfussiness of Gallowbird’s Bark and a toss ahead to the possible complexities of what’s beyond these uneasy times.
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1 - El Bicho
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