The Fiery Furnaces: I'm Going Away, part 2

From: Monty

To: Scott and Brian

Wow. Interesting how vastly different people’s perceptions and perspetives can be. I only wish I had heard Chrissie Hynde, or something resembling a hook.

Although I have been hearing bits and pieces of The Fiery Furnaces since (I believe) their inception, I'm pretty sure this is the first time I’ve subjected myself to a full album. And probably the last time. I was hoping to hear something that would help me understand their apparent popularity, but alas, no.

From what I’ve heard and what little I’ve read about them, it seems clear that their fans celebrate them as adventuresome, eclectic, and/or experimental. To me, it just sounds like people messing around. There were two or three places on the record where I heard an instrumental passage that sounded like it might go somewhere, maybe lead into an almost retro jazz kind of flourish, but nothing ever materialized. There are definitely some interesting sonic ideas, but for me they don’t add up to anything.

On the other hand, the music is enormously preferable to the vocals. As I’ve said to Brian before, when I’m listening to a new recording for the first time I like to try to ignore the lyrics as much as I can. I want to hear the vocals as another melodic element without letting the “text,” if you will, get in the way. I couldn’t do it here, as the vocals are so front-and-center. I could live with that if the words were interesting or if Friedberger’s voice were at all appealing. But the lyrics are, to paraphrase Capote, typing, not writing, and her voice sounds like a cross between MTV-era Michael Jackson (not good) and Antony from The Johnsons (even worse).

Though it’s not at all unusual for me to hear music that I don’t care for, it is a very rare thing for me to hear something and be unable to understand why someone else might like it. But sometimes it happens.