Tom's Best of 2005: #3

The Fiery Furnaces - Rehearsing My Choir - If ever there was something that could be described as an acquired taste, this is it. This might be the only album on this list that I wouldn't recommend unconditionally. Nobody will ever put this on at a party, and nobody will ever roll down the street with this blasting out of their windows. You won't hear anything else like this in 2005, or possibly ever. It may seem impenetrably weird, but with a pair of headphones and some patience, it reveals itself to be a nuanced and complex and very well-made album.

I wrote earlier that Rehearsing My Choir occupies space somewhere between Philip Glass and Gilbert and Sullivan, but that really doesn't even begin to describe the sounds contained on this album. There's a disco breakbeat here, some swinging rock there, and even a bizarre salsa of sorts, all filtered through the Fiery Furnaces' weirdness. On first listen, the random shifts in tone, genre, melody, and everything else seem frustratingly arbitrary, but once you start getting familiar with the songs, the reveal themselves to be complex and suite-like. You start looking forward to repeating instrumental phrases that crop up now and again, and you even start paying attention to the lyrics.

The lyrics are a whole separate matter. Between this and Blueberry Boat, the Furnaces seem to be gearing up for a run at a Guinness world record for most words contained on a single album, and it can be especially hard to take in considering that the preferred form of delivery here is through the gruff voice of an 83-year-old woman, a voice which can either add a new level of depth with its world-weary tone or just be really creepy. At their core, however, the songs are standard fare, stories of loss, lust, and heartbreak. They just happen to be unusually specific in time and location. If people can't relate to them, it's not because they can't relate to feeling jealous of a former lover's current partner, it's because they can't relate to feeling jealous of a former lover's current partner in Chicago in the 1940s.

Add to this the Fiery Furnaces' usual habit of throwing every weird organ, tack piano, and synth tone they can find at you, and you're faced with this question: Is it an accomplishment worth noting to take tried and true subject matters and song styles and present them successfully in a manner that is completely unique? If your answer is yes, Rehearsing My Choir might be right up your alley.