In spite of their searing name, the Fiery Furnaces carry all the hallmarks of an exceedingly cool band.
The brother/sister combo of Matt and Eleanor Friedberger was picked up by the undeniably cool Rough Trade Records. It spent the first part of its current national tour opening for Ted Leo, who is pretty much the paradigm of indie rock cool. Not to mention the fact that the pair just finished the Pacific leg of their tour, and the Pacific Coast is nothing if not cool. The two drive a van, which presumably has air conditioning. Cool.
However, the thing that makes the Fiery Furnaces really cool is that their debut record, Gallowsbird's Bark, is so charmingly devoid of hip posturing. The record is rife with the sounds of the blues, or the "pseudo-blues," as multi-instrumentalist Matt would have it.
"Not that (Eleanor) sings in a bluesy way, but she sings with that declamatory, riffing style," Matt said. "When we were doing songs together, I would play some pseudo-bluesy riff, and she would sing a three-note riff herself. So it was a way we fell into playing with each other. It worked well."
The siblings started playing together again in late 2000, when Matt found himself living in New York with Eleanor. (The two are originally from Chicago.) Though they had spent several years apart after Eleanor began attending college in Texas, the two quickly fell back into their old routines.
"We would play sports together as kids," said Matt, recalling the earliest collaborations. "And then I got too old and slow to play sports anymore, so we had to play music."
Even though Gallowsbird's Bark is steeped in the Chicago blues tradition, it would be reductive to assume the blues are the beginning and end of the Fiery Furnaces' music. Make no mistake: These guys play rock Īn' roll.
"I think we have a kitchen- sink approach," said Matt. "Bring everything in. Have someone play the maracas and bang on pipes."
But these seemingly incongruous sounds never clash. Even the most unidentifiable noises on the record seem like they fit in with the bare-bones format of the tracks. The lyrics, too, comment on these unlikely juxtapositions. Many of the songs are about physical displacement and travel. The song "Inca Rag/Name Game" is, for the most part, a funny, extended play on different cities around the world.
"I like Chess Records," said Matt. "I love Chuck Berry records and Bo Diddley records, who are guys who could play the blues very well. And part of their habitual way of playing is doing something slightly sillier, self-consciously sillier."
Keeping in mind all of the noises, sound effects and silliness on "Gallowsbird's Bark," the Fiery Furnaces' performance at Plush on Wednesday will be worth checking out. The translation of sounds discovered in the recording studio to the stage often shows creative bands at their best.
Luckily, for anyone interested in a good, old-fashioned, sweat-drenched rock show, the Fiery Furnaces have a lot of translating to do.