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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
For you Zappa folks..., December 21, 2005
I've had the pleasure of listening to The Fiery Furnace's sophomore album, Blueberry Boat several times in the past two weeks. It's nearly killed off music altogether for me. I'm not sure how Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart fans did it in the seventies. Idea's so fervent that they're coming out of every quoin of every movement in every epic-and that's just one of the thirteen songs on the Furnaces huge, end-of-it-all follow up to last years Gallowsbird's Bark debut.
By "end-of-it-all" I basically mean that it's all over. There wont be a crazier, more rewarding listening experience this year. If there is, I'm dead-I just don't think I have the energy, in fact, I'm still not sure that my ears (or patience) will make it through Blueberry. Sole members (as well as brother and sister) Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger have moved away from their impatient folk approach to a more lush, impulsive, anything goes style that recalls the headaches last heard while trying to make yourself love Trout Mask Replica.
The blistering guitar work is still there, as are the Midwestern coffee shop vocals and sweet melodies; wait till you hear what they added. In the sixties, if you made a jump like this, you were automatically rumored to be headed towards drug rehab. The Furnaces plethora of idea's are the real thing; while they are challenging and at times confusing, they always pay off in time, every one of them.
The meat of Blueberry is built on five, eight-plus minute tracks that utilize several movements whom often bask in their own genre-jumping glory. Matthew's guitar goes from cerebral backing exercise to all out, front and center, extended solos. Eleanor's barrage of piano work, keyboard effects, and sweetheart indie-pop vocals mark the arrival of a creative monster; leading her way through a seemingly impossible album intent on being catchy, peerless, and formidable.
This is the sound of grad school. It's nauseating. It's confusing. It's annoying and difficult. Blueberry Boat is an example of a band with the confidence to try to do something that has never been done-and that's a rare find. To most, Blueberry will be too much, to no one will it not be enough. This is the product of focused excess. This is the sound of Midwestern progressive rock, via New York City. This will not be where music changes for the better, and that's too bad. That was going too far, but really, Blueberry is THAT shocking of a listen. This is me, being overly enthusiastic-it's almost over.
For listeners looking to challenge both their endurance and their tolerance, this is it. Blueberry is downright hateable and admirable all at once. The ones who do click with Blueberry will very likely have a new `desert island' album on their hands, that's the power of music this imaginative and dense with direction. Few people will love this album, many will hate it-no one could have ever imagined it, not even Beefheart.
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22 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
mess at medium speed, August 22, 2004
Ok, imagine a car. You're driving. At the back seat, there are your father, granny and two brothers. One of the bros is a fan of computer sounds, he can't get enough of experimenting, the other boy likes classical rock and elecrtic guitars, your father plays a piano and granny is constantly telling fairy-tales and children stories. And they fight, they all have their ideas, their stories to tell, one tries to overtrump the other. And everyone tries to press oneself into the front seat.
And who sits on the front seat, next to you? It's your sister, singing. She's a nice person, with a unique tweak and you like her, but you've known her a long life and it's getting a bit boring. Plus, the windows are open and sometimes you pass some additional musicians. But in general, all the people in the car are getting along quite well.
And what are you thinking? You're thinking, you like it. Of course you like it, you have to, they're your family. And sometimes they really have nice moments. But still there's something wrong. You find it interesting, but it doesn't rock. You find it cute, but it doesn't excite you. You would just like to go a bit faster, but there are speed limits. And you cannot decide, if you should throw someone out of the car, or maybe you should just write some better tunes for you family to perform.
And you know, that if you let the family outside, thy would be crazier and better (live on stage). And you remember, that there were better times, times, when you found that your family rocks (previous album GALLOWBIRD'S BARK).
You don't know, what to do.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Somewhere Between Absolute Bliss and a Trainwreck, May 7, 2006
Five plus stars for vision and 3.5 stars for execution=4.25 stars
Who knew there was a band in the underground that could generate this much fervent opinion both pro and con? Seems either you hate _Blueberry Boat_ or love it. Myself, I lean very heavily towards the latter. Yes, this album could effectively be cut down by thirty minutes or so. Sure, Mr. Friedberger is probably a little too enamored of making noises on the sundry instruments he plays. And okay, the Furnaces' albums sound claustrophobic, almost "incestuous," cloistered, the sound of two twenty-something siblings with way too much time on their hands.
And all of these shortcomings add to the equation of why you should love what is shaping up to be the most ambitious indie unit of the decade.
I've wanted to review this album ever since I got it some months ago (the night I saw them live; now the live experience, THAT is something different altogether, electric, loud, brash--PLEASE put out a live album ASAP, Friedbergers). I wanted to wait 'til I "got it." Now I know that will never happen. I wanted to put together the snippets of narratives here, the shifting foci of my annoyance and ecstasy every time I listen to this album, etc. . . . Then I realized, like most of my favorite works of art, I will never put my head all the way around this one. Think _Ulysses_ or _Finnegans Wake_ by James Joyce. Could he have cut these works down by several hundreds of pages? Most certainly. Would they be the same works if it would have been easier to identify their narrative arcs, if he would have compacted them, if he wouldn't've resorted to masturbatory techniques. No, sir/ma'am; in the end, these excessive urges (ESPECIALLY the masturbation) is a large part of what Joyce's works are all about.
And in the midst of all this sprawl, Joyce managed to capture an infinite expanse of what the human condition is all "about." (Everything and nothing all at once.) And so do the Fiery Furnaces!!! Disjointed narratives about losing one's dog; wandering around Mason City, IA (it's very much in the middle of nowhere, BTW); sing-songy songs about belatedness . . . skronky guitar runs, synthesizer vamps and arpeggios, Casio drum machine, found-sound effects . . . the catalog goes on and on and you never figure out exactly what this Blueberry Boat odyssey means, exactly.
But you can pinpoint some references. Sgt. Pepper and the Magical Mystery Tour are most certainly along on this boat ride. A really convoluted version of punk is here (most certainly not the least of which is the fierce and unrelenting DIY spirit that I'm overjoyed to say that the Friedberger's will almost certainly never lose). Classic 70's rock is here (again, in exquisitely contorted form). Want an even messier concept album than _Tommy_ or ELP's _Tarkus_? Here it is. Want a musician capable of virtuosity AND squalid/weird noise a la Robert Fripp? Well, Matthew Friedberger one-ups King Crimson's ace a few notches and makes himself a freaky virtuoso on both guitar AND keyboards. Oh, and know what makes them different than all these "dinosaurs," as you indie-rock snobs so self-righteously put it? They don't take themselves seriously at all (unlike you indie-rock snobs, who likely don't want to get the Furnaces in the first place)! Song #4, "Chris Michaels" starts out with Jenny singing the delightfully gauche lyric, "Later at lunch, with the taco lettuce crunch . . ." She even puts a rolling "r" on the "crunch" in that line. Besides playing with instrument sounds, these two are also masters at playing with vowels, consonants, and mouth noises that don't even have typographical symbols. Cheesy sometimes? Hell yeah! Even vaudevillian!!! This puts them in a lineage of the creme de la creme of rock and roll who know that the best attitude is sometimes just to say, "Ah, what the f**k! Let's just rock . . . f**k the critics, f**k the audience. We'll get our love by being our own gloriously weird selves. (I'm going to add the Furnaces to a list of exalted weirdos I am starting here: Beach Boys, Beatles, Hendrix, the Who, Zappa, Captain Beefheart, NY Dolls, ELP, the Stooges, the Pistols, Wire, Flaming Lips . . . wow, this list goes on and on: AND ALL THE BANDS ARE GREAT!)
So I'm not giving this five stars. Like it says at the top, they are five plus stars for vision and spirit, but 3.5 for execution. Well, _Bitter Tea_ just came out and they have upped the ante (give me a few months to digest that one a little and I will come down from the mountain and share my opinion on that one with you, as well). They need more musicians on their albums, an actual band. They need to perfect the fine arts of editing and studio engineering. Still, I think you have to admit that it's better to have adventurous young folks like the Friedbergers figuring these arts out for themselves rather than having some execs pushing them as the next emo sensation or some s**t. Mark my words. Give this album many close listens and many more not-so-close listens besides (minimum grand total of fifteen--it's that dense). Then, get back to me and tell me that you don't hear one of the most impressive indie bands of the decade. And then I'll laugh at you. We'll look back at the avant-de-siecle of this decade and mention these guys along with a handful of other true indie pioneers like Deerhoof and (used-to-be-indie) Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and whomever else comes along in the next four years. The great news is that the Friedbergers are still very young and have many five-star albums in them yet. _Blueberry Boat_ is definitely the start of something incredible.
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