The Fiery Furnaces – Rehearsing My Choir (Rough Trade) Released 24/10/05

 

 

Unfortunately for The Fiery Furnaces it is the latter. An album made up of a series of events centred around Matt and Eleanor Friedbergers’ grandma Olga Santanos. At its most glamorous ‘Rehearsing My Choir’ tells the tale of passions, lost loves, and beautifully observed portraits through fresh, original and challenging music. However, at its more realistic and truthful, it is a mish-mesh of random beats and dreary dialogue, more like dark cabaret than original pop music.

 

‘Rehearsing My Choir’ is painful from start to finish, made worse by Matt Friedberger’s immensely irritating voice, sounding like an automated voice recording of Austin Powers’ nemesis-come-father Dr Evil. A glimmer of hope occurs in two places on the album. Firstly, on ‘A Candymaker’s knife in my handbag’, a bizarre yet effective combination of medieval strings and progressive house beats, sadly to be overwritten by Dr Evils drone.  Secondly on ‘slavin’ away’ Eleanor Friedberger delivers the only vocal harmony on the album, and shows a tiny cavity into what The Fiery Furnaces could produce, however again becomes distorted by unnecessary dialogue and a poor array of synthesisers.

 

Sadly folks, if it's music you are after where the musicians actually play melodies and the singers actually sing, then The Fiery Furnaces are going to disappoint, as ‘Rehearsing The Choir’ is more a series of tracks than songs.