The Fiery Furnaces debut album Gallowsbird’s Bark secured their reputation as a freakish, forward thinking New York garage band and provided a shaky basis for their comparison with the White Stripes. Maybe the parallel between the bands stemmed from the main duo, Matt and Eleanor Friedberger, whose sibling relationship conveys the same mystery of that of Jack and Meg White. But that comparison focuses mostly on inter-band relationships. In fact, the two bands lie far from each other on the musical spectrum.
The Fiery Furnaces new album, Blueberry Boat, has proven to only further distance them from the White Stripes as well as other genre defying bands with similar sounds.
The 76-minute epic Blueberry Boat smolders as a mad scientist’s creation from part rock opera, part psychedelic and part prog, with a dash of garage rock and a hint of folk. Blueberry Boat is so packed with ear candy, listening to it can be compared to the day after Halloween. You have indulged in so much delicious candy that the sight of a Snickers bar makes you want to vomit, but within a week you find yourself giving in to the sweet seduction again.
The lengthy run time may be a bit daunting considering that the album flows quickly from one challenging sonic juxtaposition to another. The first song, “Quay Cur,” sets swells of space echo and floating bursts of organ over the sting of massive electronic drums but is suddenly replaced by dense layers of prog synths, which gives way to a bouncing acoustic guitar that introduces the next segment of the song.
This schizophrenic approach to sound and texture only makes the album a more challenging listen, but with some careful listening it becomes clear that the important musical phrases and themes return throughout the songs under the guise of many arrangements. Even after the initial listen, certain themes will be familiar.
The lyrics also play a unifying role by setting a literal motif that compliments and enhances the context of the music itself. The lyrics introduce a plethora of intriguing characters that are traveling in search of something or are swept away into an adventure during their innocent travels.
“My Dog was Lost but Now He’s Found” finds Eleanor on a quest to find her dog who left on his own journey for salvation after enduring the physical and mental torment of his then cruel master. As Eleanor describes her search, the music constantly transforms to fit her experience. She finally goes to a church where she claims “The guest preacher said I bark but I don’t bite/I saw my dog but he’d seen the light/My dog was lost but now he’s found,” while gliding organs evoke the atmosphere of the scene.
The massive set of lyrics not only plays counterpart to the music but offers its own deliberate aesthetic traits. The Furnaces often employ alliteration to give the vocal phrases texture. Nowhere is this more apparent than in “Quay Cur” when Matt sings “A looby, a lordant, a lagerhead lozel, a lungio, lathback made me a proposal.” Such a stream of nonsense may seem indulgently esoteric, but not out of place.
The album’s fault is that the Furnaces’ ambitions outweigh their abilities as composers and musicians. There are passages in the album that lull perhaps because they seem misplaced within the greater context of the album or they fall back on a theme that seems worn out at the moment, with little elaboration or added texture.
For the most part, however, Blueberry Boat transcends this discrepancy and soars to success with a crystalline production by Matt Friedburger, including abstract arrangements and poetic lyrics.
Although for some Blueberry Boat may sound a bit too ambitious, unfocused or grandiose, it still remains a wholly unique and skillful musical statement, which given some time and attention, pulls you into its adventurous world.
