Biased Record Review - Fiery Furnaces Remember

Uh, you can probably say that I like the Fiery Furnaces band because I do. I like 'em loads. I've even seen 'em live and in concert in person and such. They were good as hell too. They "rocked."

I think I have most of their records too. Blueberry Boat (introduced and given to me by Mikey R.), Bitter Tea, and Widow City. Oh, I don't have Rehearsing My Choir. That's the one. Like I said, I like what they do a lot. Put it this way, I'd play for them. I'd do it for union scale too. I don't say that about many bands.

So Eleanor and Matt have this new album: Remember. No, I'm not asking you to remember anything--it's not a question, that's the name of the record. If one were to give Remember a so-called "letter grade" based on The Expert Reviews, it would be staring at a semester-ending D or maybe a D+. QPG? A "D?!" Fiery Furnaces would have to go to the local community college, sell low grade marijuana, live in a single-wide mobile home, and eat scrapple purchased with bartered food stamps.

But wait!

Whatevers, Remember is perfect. There I said it...for all the internets to read (or the two people who read this nonsense). Fuck off rock reviews! You can't give Remember a letter grade, dumb asses. You measure that deal(io) with a narrative evaluation or a Geiger counter or a BTU or something. Richter scale, perhaps. Meaning, if you're expecting your classic live rock album where it goes, [fade-in] raving cheers--crappy version of pop song--raving cheers [fade-out], you'll be sorely disappointed and grade badly. Remember is a reimagineering in and of itself of what the live record should be. It's a paradigm shift of the live album. So stop it. Didn't Hopey Obama tell us to live in the future?

Buy some headphones ("...good a thing").

It's not like I'm going to hold a convention or run negative ads on the TeeVee to convince you to listen to it. You'll just have to take that leap yourself. I'll just drop this not-subtle clue though: You can't do that on stage anymore.