The Fiery Furnaces - Bitter Tea

The typical music journalist finds it necessary to play several roles, or try to, anyway; reporter, evangelist, psychologist, preacher and prophet - each needs its food. Some bands provide enough nourishment to feed each of these personas, and some leave leftovers for months. The Fiery Furnaces are one such band, and when you hear their records it’s no wonder. They’re the type of band, turns out, that can turn brother against brother, inspiring loyal adoration in some and disdain in others. Since their quirky entrance into the music world with Gallowsbird’s Bar in 2003, the siblings Friedberger remain a centerpiece of speculation and discussion after three critically-acclaimed records.

At first glance, Bitter Tea seems just as schizophrenic as last year’s “rock-opera” concept album, Rehearsing My Choir, which featured the duo’s grandmother, but also sounds less haphazard. Incidentally, both albums were recorded at the same time, but where Choir gets criticized for leaning too heavily on intellect and narrative and not enough on melody, Bitter Tea is a markedly more assured pop record. The Furnaces originally intended for the two albums to companion one another, the first, as Matthew Friedberger put it, standing as the “grandmother record” and the other the granddaughter. If Bitter Tea is the granddaughter, it’s a fictional one. Friedberger writes most of the band’s lyrics with his sister in mind, and doesn’t feel the need to make them true.

The arrangements of Bitter Tea explore the relationship between order and chaos. The album is built on an aesthetic framework of juicy pop, but one that works to dismantle the genre’s traditional structure and reassemble it, as if each song was once broken apart and put together without blueprints. But what’s impressive is Matthew Friedberger’s ability to carry a song’s theme, in a classical sense, through what appear to be disparate sections. The songs often feel more akin to ‘movements’ than verses and choruses.

The album is full of standout tracks. Part jungle tribesman, part UFO visitation and part vigilant lover, “In My Little Thatched Hut” begins with a creepy, circus-like synth riff. Eleanor Friedberger’s strong, but subtly-hued voice plays off acoustic guitar, tribal drums, jangly piano bits and a guitar nearly loosened of its strings. Both reversed instruments and reversed vocals play a heavy role throughout, imitating some mythic language or drunken monk chants. Synthesizers belch out noises that sound like digital balloons being released of air or the metallic chirp of robotic birds. If that sounds disorienting, it’s because it is…at first.

“Teach Me Sweetheart” is two parts sexiness and introspection, two parts bravado and bashful. The lilting melody rides over the top of low-tuned toms, delayed guitar and organ swirling through a Leslie, while a downbeat-driven acoustic breaks up the melancholy. “Oh Sweet Woods” is dance music with ‘indie cred’, and tracks like “Borneo”, “Police Sweater Blood Vow ” and “I’m Waiting to Know You” are as close to straightforward pop as the album comes, and just the right kind.

The Furnaces will probably always face accusations of pretension and self-indulgence, and this album won’t be excluded. But like the Furnaces’ other material, Bitter Tea leaves no room for casual listening, making it virtually impossible to accept the album passively. Regardless of what naysayers think, Bitter Tea is one for the library and worth as many listens as you can give it.

The Fiery Furnaces, Bitter Tea: A

Posted on May 15, 2006 12:00 AM