I’ve never met anyone who calls The Fiery Furnaces their favourite band. You know the type I mean - the band whose songs you adolescently live your life by, who you stick with even when they make that difficult seventh album of kazoo ballads, safe in the knowledge that that eighth album is totally going to be "The One". The Fiery Furnaces are unlikely to be that band for anyone; sure, they’re a perpetually fascinating group ”“ the schizoid Blueberry Boat remains one of the decade’s most brilliantly baffling albums ”“ but unfortunately, they’re almost painfully aware of just how fascinating they are. What they don’t know, however, is that the three minutes it takes to play 'Single Again' ”“ one of their most unpredictably concise singles ”“ are infinitely more captivating than the sixty-plus minutes it takes to get through most of their meandering records. Of course you have to respect the music your favourite band makes ”“ that’s a given ”“ but actually being able to love it is pretty fucking important too. I’m Going Away sounds like a conscious attempt to redress that balance, and suggests the most unpredictable thing they could do is be (relatively) predictable. The urgent disco-Beefheart stomp of the opening title track aside, the album is laid-back grab-bag of seventies soft rock and sweet soul music ”“ “the squarest thing on the jukebox”, as two songs here would have it. Sure, Eleanor Friedberger’s lyrics are still mouthfuls of slippery syllables and crazy phrases (“Who cut the cake with my special knife?”), and her brother Matthew’s arrangements still insist on mad tempo changes and ill-fitting solos, but for once, they’re not done at the expense of the songs themselves.The days when the video for 'Tropical Ice-Land' was plastered across MTV2 like the nerdy girl at a hipster party seem like a distant, half-invented memory, but the irrepressible blues shuffle of 'Charmaine Champagne' suggests a return invitation may just have got lost in the post. Meanwhile, 'Drive to Dallas' answers the oft-asked question - what would Sharleen Spiteri sound like impersonating Patti Smith? ”“ an image interrupted only by Matthew’s sporadic impressions of kid-in-a-music-shop. The only real hint of the pretensions of the Fiery Furnaces of old is 'Even in the Rain'; with its endlessly shifting key changes, it should be one of the most annoying things in the band’s frequently grating canon, but it’s welded to the kind of smooth soul melody that renders all the world’s problems irrelevant for at least four minutes.I’m Going Away, unlike every other Fiery Furnaces release to date, is utterly devoid of filler, and it almost makes you wonder if, in their advanced state of hyper-clever-cleverness, they always knew they could make something like this. Chances are they’ll get freaky again on album number seven, but that won’t take away from the fact that this is an expertly-crafted pop record. There’s still no chance they could ever be my favourite band but, six albums in, maybe I could learn to love The Fiery Furnaces after all.The Fiery Furnaces on Myspace