Send "The Fiery Furnaces " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Sputnikmusic |
 With 2007’s Widow City, it seemed that the Fiery Furnaces had finally gotten as normal as they could get. It was, finally, an album that didn’t signify a major change in direction and musical stylings for this brother-sister duo: it seemed that Matthew Friedberger, who composes all the music for the band, had finally let his ambitions waver a bit. Despite this, and despite Eleanor Friedberger again delivering another excellent performance, Widow City ultimately was a minor disappointment: it was way too long and had basically no focus. Fans (or at least this one) yearned for a return to the classic days of complexity.So it should come as no surprise that I’m Going Away is the band’s poppiest and most accessible work to date: the Fiery Furnaces were never one to conform and do whatever seemed right, and, despite whatever derision Widow City received, the streamlined direction of this newest work is looking more and more like the best idea the band’s ever had. For one, the album’s excellent: these Brooklyn natives finally seem to be able to self-edit, and the songs here are free of all those complicated ideas that made the band’s previous albums so hard to get into; all that’s left is just the breezy, highly listenable melodic stuff. But leaving behind all the experimentation reveals a surprisingly pure and gimmick-free sound, one that doesn’t get lost in its own pretentions....full text |
| Dustedmagazine |
| Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger, the familial brains trust behind the Fiery Furnaces, cop flack for their ambition and wilfulness, as though it’s wrong for a duo to write and play as though they’ve twenty more limbs than their biology betrays. I’ve never had much of a problem with it though, long admiring their stumbles and failures. No one needs to hear a concept album sung by the Friedberger’s grandmother (Rehearsing My Choir), or an at times agonisingly abstruse double-live disc (Remember), but they did it, not you, and who’s to deny the Fiery Furnaces their conceptual clarity, even if it comes at a cost to the listening function? That’s an interesting gambit in itself, if one that a lot of part-time (read: uncommitted) Furnaces fans bemoan. If anything, the Fiery Furnaces lead the listener to some odd conclusions, like the realization that Remember’s fold-in fold-out structure, the way it slips between and returns to songs like mnemonics, recalls the Grateful Dead’s fluid live sets, as documented on approximately 2,000 bootleg tapes. I’m Going Away, then, is the Fiery Furnaces’ American Beauty – deceptively concise songs that often borrow from their makers’ colloquial knowledges (showtunes, jazz, some folk, even a touch of Steely Dan’s “Peg” in “The End Is Near”) as a structuring device....full text |
| Prefixmag |
| I'm Going Away is an appropriate title for the Fiery Furnaces' eighth full-length, because Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger have been fleeing pop conventions for a large portion of their collaborative careers. The 12 tracks off this '70s-sitcom-inspired piano-pop joint were recorded near the siblings in the 88th, 90th and 94th Precincts of New York City at the end of 2008 and the start of 2009. It was produced by Matthew and recorded and mixed by Sebadoh's Jason Lowenstein (who also played bass). Drums and percussion came courtesy of longtime bandmate/friend Robert D'Amico. Except for the traditional title track, everything was arranged in the usual Friedberger & Friedberger way: Matt penned the majority of the arrangements and Eleanor wrote most of the itinerary-laden lyrics. ...full text |
The Fiery Furnaces lyrics
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