The Fiery Furnaces -Bitter Tea

Wed 26th Apr, 2006 in Music Reviews

Despite their relative anonymity, The Fiery Furnaces (brother and sister duo Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger) have managed to garner rave reviews for their debut album Gallowsbird’s Bark.  Their frosty relationship as teenagers and unusual musical pedigree, they came from a musical family which is de rigueur these days and their grandmother was the choir director of their local church, have lent their music a rather eccentric quality.  Their debut was followed by their sophomore album Blueberry Boat and an ensuing EP of b-sides that not only maintained the critics’ approval but the praise of a newly converted legion of fans.

Despite such an optimistic beginning things slowly began to sour when they enlisted their 83 year old grandmother to provide the vocals on the spoken word concept album Rehearsing My Choir.  It’s a lot to ask a discerning indie crowd to accept and justifiably the disparaging statements began to fly.

The release of their current album Bitter Tea has been met with an equal measure of trepidation and hopeful anticipation.  How much further could this experimental mess deteriorate? It’s not as bad forecasters have predicted it would be but the album is still a shambolic mess.  The grandmother is nowhere to be seen but Bitter Tea comes across as a collection of disjointed songs that have been massacred by the Fiery Furnace’s fondness for annoying synths and backward vocals.  Picture the absurdity of a woman who wears all her clothes before she leaves the house and in this album you have its musical equivalent. 

The songs come screaming at you with all their bells and whistles but it’s hard to determine what the Friedberger’s have thrown at them because they are in such a fragmented state of disarray.  The opening track In My Little Thatched Hut starts off well with it’s fervent bass line, tribal beats and Eleanor’s restrained vocals but her sibling then digresses into a bizarre electronic treatment that makes it sound like someone’s playing space invaders in the background.  The infectious I’m In No Mood and Black-Hearted Boy both have a captivating hook but would be less annoying if Matt Friedberger wouldn’t intervene with his annoying electronica and backwards vocals.  At times the vocals are so obscure and incomprehensible it sounds like Eleanor is singing backwards when she’s not.

The songwriting is atrocious but when it’s coupled with the fragmented melodies the dreadful prose is amplified.  It vacillates from the appallingly obscure Black-Hearted Boy; ‘See the smoke from your kiln, pine boughs burn the bricks dead hard in their fog, as I stand cold with my back broke by the bog’, to the lamentable Bitter Tea; ‘I’ve got a special category business down by the Multifunctional Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Rollerblade Rink down by the home of Bitter Tea’.

Teach Me Sweetheart begins confidently with Eleanor’s fragile vocals and simple pensive melody and works well with in spite of the creepy backwards electronica that slowly encroaches.  The rambling synths and urgent vocals of I’m Waiting To Know You are again overshadowed by the inclusion of more backwards vocals.  It’s like a never ending episode of Twin Peaks, only without the annoying dwarf.  If only the Friedberger’s could learnt a little self self-control because there’s a great song in there just waiting to be liberated from amid the chaos.  Oh Sweet Woods sounds like they’ve sampled Michael Jackson’s Billy Jean but mutated it into an experimental electronic mess whilst Eleanor rambles on about Mormons wanting to balance her chequebook. 

There’s a certain sense of frustration that surfaces when listening to this album.  Underneath all the noise, weird synths, ear splitting notes and backward vocals there are a number of great songs just waiting to be unearthed.  If only the Freidbergers could maintain a little more restraint and stop slaughtering their music. It’s hard to imagine that anyone will part with money to buy this album, and for those of you who are, it would be a less wearisome endeavour to just throw your money straight into the bin.  I’m not giving up on the Fiery Furnaces just yet but if their next album continues in the same vein then I regret to advise that I’m running for the hills.