[.ca] Blueberry Boat

AWESOME COLLAGES OF SOUND.....:
The last disk that had this kind of impact on me (listening to at least 2wice a day (after purchase no less, i downloaded some 'preview' songs early...) was Neutral Milk Hotel's Aeroplane CD. Simply put- it's elegant, beautifully-crafted, experimental indie pop that makes you think, dream, and be appreciative of having the sense of sound. Like music and collage lyrics out of some surreal diary, these songs overlap and spill forth in such a way (no one song is decipherable from the entirety of the whole disk) that you listen to the whole 76 minutes in total bliss & wonder. Quay Cur, Mason City, Blueberry Boat, Inspector Blancheflower, all are magnificient and diverse. They have been compared to Belle & Sebastian, White Stripes, Velvet Underground, Capt. Beefheart, Beach Boys, etc.- but they are a little of all of that and their own thing all at once. One other parallel I can draw is to The Microphones epic CD- The Glow Pt. 2- but this album would be that one, albeit more blippy and on Zoloft- happy & melancholic, simultaneously. Not a particularly even college-radio friendly series of songs, this is a challenging & special disk that deserves a wider audience.

Best album of 2004:
This is the most ambitious album I have heard in a while. They take chances. It might sound like non-music at first listen. People didn't like Pet Sounds when it came out either. Bands have been copying all the cool bands of the past forever. It's great when a band like Fiery Furnaces go out on a limb and try to do something difficult. There are hardly any singles or pop songs on this record. It's a collection of strange sound meant to be listened all together. It features four or five songs that go over eight minutes. Even those songs change gears in midsong. Instead of having a chorus, the FF's just change the tune. Matt and Eleanor trade more vocals in the songs than the previous album. Live they play these songs ferociously. They play almost all their songs in 45 minutes, sometimes only a minute of one song. It's part of the new progressive music.

Rock the boat:
Every now and again, there comes an indie-rock band that really blows the mind. Neutral Milk Hotel, Radiohead and the Flaming Lips are among those bands -- and now the Fiery Furnaces join their ranks, with the rock opera "Blueberry Boat." Sprawling, quirky and musically epic, this is undoubtedly an indie classic in the making. Piano and sputtering keyboards open the enormous intro song -- it's ten minutes long, no kidding. Then Eleanor Friedburger's sweet, singsong vocals kick in, singing a sprawling pop song. It sounds like a child's nursery rhyme on acid, full of deceptively simple rhythms, sparkling melodies and Inuit words tossed into the mix. A sugnacoon, by the way, is a coat. That ten-minute opener also gives an idea of what the band is all about -- strange ideas, set into stories against a backdrop of indierock. Echoing guitars and swirling keyboards fill up the gaps between their story-songs, which focus on everything from a religious dog in the fuzzy organ-pop "My Dog Was Lost But Now He's Found," to doing legal work in guitar-heavy "Mason City." If you want to get technical, nothing here makes sense. But like Neutral Milk Hotel, it makes sense if you ignore all your musical senses, and just listen to it by itself. The wild stylistic changes in the middle of songs, the nonsensical lyrics, and the mix of acoustic and keyboard seem like a trio of death knells for this album. Instead, they add to the magic and whimsy of it. At first glance, the songs seem incomprehensible. Or worse, absurd. But just keep listening -- sooner or later it clicks, and the unique writing of each song shines out. The songs overflow with onomatopoeia (note: words that sound like sounds), childlike rhymes, and bizarre subject matter like pirates robbing the "blueberry boat." Perhaps the best representation is the first song -- "Quay Cur" has a lot of words that sound like nonsense, but turn out to make perfect sense once you look up what they are. While the Furnaces got lots of praise for being catchy in their debut, here they don't stick to hooks -- whenever you think they're going to do so, they veer off. Instead we get unabashedly sparkly melodies, handclaps and eerie keyboards that sputter, ripple, hover and spark. The piano gets the best workout -- sometimes it tinkles, sometimes it ripples, sometimes it gets thumped into a dance-hall rhythm. Sibling musicians Matt and Eleanor Friedberger share vocal duties -- Matt sounds a bit grimmer and down-to-earth, even when he's surrounded by keyboard washes. Eleanor throws herself entirely into the singing, with plenty of humor about lines like, "I kicked my dog... I was MEAN to him before!" She sounds genuinely shocked about herself. The concept album is not quite dead, and the Fiery Furnaces have done their bit to keep it alive. To call their charming, eerie critique/concept album a future classic isn't too much of a stretch.

blueberry boat - pitchforkmedia:
Though they made their name on last year's raucous stomper Gallowsbird's Bark, nothing on that album hinted at the pure, riveting ambition of The Fiery Furnaces' second album. Blueberry Boat is, without question, one of indie rock's most ambitious statements in years: A sprawling, 76-minute behemoth reeling with labyrinthine pop songs, barnburning rockers and haunted balladry-- often all within the span of just a few minutes. The Fiery Furnaces emerge here as true pop auteurs, acknowledging the influence of The Who's rock suites, and integrating a half-dozen seemingly separate ideas into each track in ways that make every piece feel epic. Unequivocally, one of the year's best releases.

SEE THEM LIVE:
Like many reviewers, I also bought this CD after reading so many positive reviews calling this the best album of the year. The live show is a completely overhaul of their material - it was such an experience! I felt it in my soul! If there's one band you see live this year, make it the Fiery Furnaces - it will blow you away.

• Quay Cur
• Straight Street
• Blueberry Boat
• Chris Michaels
• Paw Paw Tree
• My Dog Was Lost But Now He's Found
• Mason City
• Chief Inspector Blancheflower
• Spaniolated
• 1917
• Birdie Brain
• Turning Round
• Wolf Notes