Sanctuary Records
2004
Blueberry Boat
About This Album
Overflowing with creativity and energy, fueled by a cheery restlessness, the Fiery Furnaces are perhaps the most charmingly difficult rock band in years. Most acts wait a few albums to unleash their rock operas and concept albums, but just as Gallowsbird's Bark seemed to contain several albums' worth of ideas and melodies (that often sounded like they were playing at once), the Fiery Furnaces skip ahead and deliver the fascinating, vaguely conceptual, and only occasionally frustrating Blueberry Boat less than a year after their debut. The band packs even more stuff into these 13 songs, nearly all of which have distinct movements that sound like two or three times as many tracks. Stories about pirates, Spain, a love triangle, a girl kidnapped into white slavery, World War I, and (of course) blueberries are surrounded by strange noises and twists that act like funhouse mirrors, stretching and warping the album's essentially simple melodies until they're about to fall apart. At times, Blueberry Boat sounds like it was made entirely out of the noodly bits that most other bands would junk for being too weird and difficult, but the Fiery Furnaces forge them into an album that's both more pop and more radical than Gallowsbird's Bark.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 and 9)

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