Here comes trouble. Just when you think you’re getting to like brother-sister duo The Fiery Furnaces they tie your shoelaces together, rip the final chapter out of your book and run off giggling delectably, leaving you aggravated and unfulfilled, but unable to rule out giving them a second chance. Their albums thus far have been investigations into the sturdiness of patience – watch a monkey throw daggers at an ice-cube for eternity and the law of averages will have him fashion a graceful limited-edition sculpture before Judgment Day calls, and you can label him a genius. Until then he’s just a dumb dagger-flinging flid lagging a couple of million years behind on the evolutionary scale. Though entirely watchable, mind.
So there’s no denying that they get it right, but the point is that their strengths can be their weaknesses, their weaknesses their strengths. Though their weaknesses can admittedly stay true to themselves too. It’s their naïve experimentalism, clanging through genres without a shard of subtlety, that makes them so adorable. And when they do hit on something that works it’s a damn tequila-chasing celebration. This collection of EP and non-album tracks is a surprisingly concise round up of their capabilities (in both the positive and negative sense), without the fat or the context of an album forced on it. This album was good by accident. And in that sense it’s a naively collected collection of naivety, which is quite sweet.
Eleanor chirps forth with her trademark quirky stream of consciousness, or at least unedited diary entries, from the off. The lyrics on these songs seem less pretentious than on ‘Blueberry Boat’ at least, ergo much more palatable. Don’t go thinking it’s all come out in the wash though. ‘Cousin Chris’ is a typically Fiery Furnaces assault on the music box and one of the more testing moments on the record, like the Velcro’s lost its stick. ‘Sing For Me’ though is the Delgados fronted by the muted but melodramatic stylings of Kathleen Turner in drag. The ace perky ‘Tropical Iceland’ is like a fresh-faced Bjork fronting Bis. And brand new song ‘Here Comes The Summer’ follows seamlessly on from the elastic indie of ‘Single Again’ and is a pretty wonderful squelching lo-fi update of pristine Abba pop. For once then, they’ve been practically no trouble at all. Amazing.