well deserved hour and a bit long break.
This was while brother and sister and company made their
way through shortened album tracks such as ‘Leaky Tunnel’, ‘Up
In The North’ as well as a new pop, tarted up version
of ‘Tropical Iceland’ (released 23/02/04), enabling
them to freshen up their set with impressive unreleased bluesy
rock corkers, such as ‘Broke Mind’ and the ode
religious enlightenment that is ‘My Dog Was Lost But
Now He Is Found’. The Furnaces, kept the crowd on their
toes with their ability to swing from deep and mysterious
like ‘Crystal Clear’ and ‘Inca Rag, Name
Game’ to simple and succinct as in ‘Spanio/Single’,
where they happily dispersed home truths as candidly as my
old grandmother used to;
“I’m wishin’ I was
single again,
When I was single my pockets did jingle.
Oh, I’m wishin’ I was single again.”
The diversity of The Fiery Furnaces was
shown in the encore when just Matt & Eleanor returned
to complete three impressive stripped down tracks, with a
mere keyboard accompaniment. ‘Rub-Alcohol Blues’ was
the highlight, a typical sombre blues track showing the band
at their simplistic best. There was something niggling at
the back of my mind as I vacated the venue. It was only when
I returned to the train station and saw an ostentatious and
out of date poster advertising the NME tour that I realised
what is so refreshing about tonight’s set. Tracks that
had been previously released had been revamped and bought
to life in a live environment. Despite having released a
sixteen track stonker of a debut album; ‘Gallowbird’s
Bark’ there was such depth and quality to the material
utilised, with a healthy share of the set list being completely
new to most. This is why The Furnaces weren’t playing
in an oversized venue tonight because are furnished with
the knowledge and belief to adopt the refreshing ‘REM’ approach
to recognition. Bland posters were not needed and Eleanor
did not need to slag off Kelly Osbourne, or have been married
to a famous punk to convince people to buy tickets to the
gig. To avoid ending this on a sour note I shall stop this
rant now and say thanks guys for a refreshingly entertaining
evening!
Fiery Furnaces: Gallowbird's Bark
- Album Review
www.thefieryfurnaces.com
David Adair |
