Another cut up, messed up pop album from the Friedberger kids, but I can’t see this one really delighting anyone. If you’re already familiar with the Furnaces, expect the normal mash-ups but with a clean, seventies rock sound, embellished with a frankly overused Chamberlin keyboard. With the Mellotron (which the Chamberlin is, essentially) enjoying a rather tedious revival all over the music world, you can’t seem to turn the radio on without hearing something that sounds like a poor man’s “Strawberry Fields”, and I didn’t like the original.

Overall, Widow City is the most produced, slick Furnaces release to date, and that doesn’t seem to be a good thing – a lot of the cut ups here sound contrived, often getting in the way of what, until then, was a perfectly good song. It’s as if they remember a few minutes in that they’re meant to be a bit avant-garde, so chuck something in to appease the die-hards, while alienating anyone else who may have been innocently tapping their foot in the process. When they just let the song go, unhindered, as with “Japanese Sleepers”, you see what they’re now, and perhaps always were, capable of; bizarre yet accessible pop. But too often they add a twist, such as on “Navy Nurse” or “Clear Signal From Cairo”, which sees everything reduced to, frankly, rock opera nonsense.

For the uninitiated, New York’s Fiery Furnaces draw from influences too numerous to list, but here the likes of fellow local entrepreneurs Patti Smith (vocally) and even the Beastie Boys (when they’re rocking the beat, especially on “Wicker Whatnots”) permeate the best bits, joined by a dizzying array including Devo, Led Zeppelin, Funkadelic and psychedelic era Beatles to varying degrees of success. At their core they’ve got the funk, and the rock, but they’ve also got the soul of freeform jazz randomness that means you’ll never see them on children’s television. The monster rock riffs are nice and beefy, and sometimes work well with the cheesy Chamberlin sound, but when this cuts to avant-pop mid-song, you’re often left thinking ‘why?’ instead of ‘wow’. The lyrics are playful; often daft although always compelling, and delivered with that perfect New York lilt that makes even the most bizarre couplet sound believable.

Widow City does nothing to change my mind that the recorded album format is never going to be where Fiery Furnaces are at their best. Another fair attempt, but it just doesn’t add up, with more misses than hits. Take out big chunks of clever-clever and this could’ve been a real gem.
60%

Links
Fiery Furnaces [official site] [myspace] [buy it]