Fiery Furnaces

Rehearsing My Choir (Rough Trade)

It probably seemed like a good idea: The Fiery Furnaces get their octogenarian grandmother, a former choir director, to guest on the third full-length. In reality, it’s more trying than a shuffleboard tournament. Singer/guitarist Eleanor Friedberger is adept at spinning fingernail-biting yarns that make their music breathless. Their grandmother is not. Olga Sarantos’ voice is gruff, halting, masculine, and the parts on which she sings (talks) sound like an NPR segment. She trades barbs with Eleanor on “The Wayfaring Granddaughter,” but their voices never harmonize. Instead, they sound like two women gossiping after a church service. The songs suffer, too. Most are painfully long-winded, filled with scattershot Perrey and Kingsley bleeps or brother Matthew’s plodding piano. You keep waiting for the epic Seventies swirl of organ and drums that the Friedbergers excel at, but save for the gorgeous AM radio feel of “Slavin’ Away” and the piano on opener “The Garfield El,” it’s tedious where there should be tension. To quote grandma on the title track, “That doesn’t sound good.”

*.5

This article appears in November 18 • 2005.

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