Hate 'Em or Love 'Em
There are fewer better demonstrations of true public opinion than reviews on Amazon.com. And few activities bring cheaper thrills than poring over reviews for a duo as divisive as Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger, the siblings that make up the foundation of the Fiery Furnaces. Out of 95 customer reviews for 2004's ambitious Blueberry Boat, a disproportionate amount of them are either one or five stars. Seven reviewers give the album three stars. One of them sounds like the impulse to be diplomatic is tearing their brain apart, the other bizarrely compares the record to riding in a car with family members-sometimes you hate them, but you have to like them.
Their sound has developed considerably from the messy, whimsical white boy blues and garage vaudeville routines of 2003's Gallowsbird Bark into what could most easily be described as indie-rock musical theater. Their songs are wordy, elaborately structured and apt to shift gears abruptly, but they manage to make room for charm, humor and pop hooks. It's not easy music, which isn't to say that its difficulty is always rewarding: after playing last year's Rehearsing My Choir for two full months, I realized that any more exposure would be verging on masochism. Then again, even that album had plenty of five-star reviews on Amazon. Go figure.
Conceived loosely as a set of songs that a heartbroken young girl might bang out while alone at the piano, the recently released Bitter Tea is their darkest and most alluring album yet. While Blueberry Boat showed off Matthew's passion for big, Who-style rock bombast, Bitter Tea is more oriented toward meshes of synthesizer, droning patterns and over-the-top psychedelic effects; it has fewer drums and feels more inclined to take cues from Kurt Weill cabaret or moody '50s-style prom balladry. Eleanor, who handles almost all the vocals, sings in a modest, inquisitive way particularly well-suited to the album's vaguely claustrophobic yearning. If there's any obvious complaint, it's that at 73 minutes, it's the first Fiery Furnaces album that feels too long (believe it, they've been longer). Then again, I'm sure the fine customers on Amazon will set forth a flock of reasons why it's either a gobsmackingly brilliant or irredeemably awful record. All of them will be right, and that's why it's worth finding out for yourself.