The Friedbergers—the arch, Tenenbaums-esque brother-and-sister
duo—are back with a very good seventh album.
If you’ve ever been on the fence about the band’s experimental
excess, but enjoyed their more-cohesive moments, you’ll be pleased by
I’m Going Away. It’s a listener-friendly album that doesn’t
stretch the limits of credulity like Blueberry Boat‘s
abstractions or the spoken-word strangeness of 2005’s Rehearsing My
Choir.
Here, the band simply delivers the goods: ramshackle prog-pop that
affects a tone both effectively summer-y and creepy. It’s a weird
emotional cue that few other bands manage to strike, but the Furnaces
have mastered it.
As evidence, I’ll refer you to tracks like “Staring at the Steeple,”
with its pyrotechnic drumming and spook-house organ riffs, and the
kitschy shuffle-beat on “Charmaine Champagne.” “Ray Bouvier” has all
the wistful triumph of an end-of-high-school film’s prom sequence, when
the romantic leads share a dance before the credits roll.
“Lost at Sea” is the album’s gentlest moment, with Eleanor cooing
“Baby I’m … / Maybe I’m not me.” That lyrical ellipsis delivers all
of the inherent drama one might expect, and reminds us how
sophisticated the Furnaces have become at staging that drama by using
what is left out. It’s a reminder that the band is capable of restraint
and subtlety—a nice counterpoint to their beatnik,
stream-of-consciousness tendency to overload songs with language.
That’s still in evidence on I’m Going Away, but it’s less
off-putting now that we’ve seen them strike so many varying poses.
This article appears in Jul 23-29, 2009.
