Album: The Fiery Furnaces

Extending further the mock-operatic pretensions of last year's Blueberry Boat, sibling duo Matt and Eleanor Friedberger follow with this concept album based on the reminiscences of their octogenarian grandmother Olga Sarantos. Matt wrote Rehearsing My Choir, and there's an imposing edge to Olga's stern delivery of his narratives, which are counterpointed by Eleanor's sung representations of the youthful Olga. The cycle is set to a series of frantic instrumental flurries that aren't so much song arrangements as successions of solo bursts of tack piano, organ, synth, electric piano, acoustic and electric guitars, and Eleanor's cluttered, trudging drums. There are resemblances to fellow neo-primitives like The Residents and Johnny Dowd, but the Furnaces lack their melodic flair and decent tunes are in short supply here. That's not to say there isn't incident and detail aplenty in tracks like "Guns Under the Counter" , in which a Depression-era baker tends the wound of a shooting victim with jam from a doughnut - but often I wanted to hear the stories without the irritating musical distractions.

DOWNLOAD THIS: 'Guns under the Counter', 'The Wayward Granddaughter', 'Rehearsing My Choir'

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